Steve Yarbrough 
Major Works
- Mississippi History (1994)
- Family Men (1990)
- Veneer (1998)
- The Oxygen Man 1999
- Visible Spirits 2001
- Safe from the Neighbors 2010
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Photo right of Steve Yarbrough by Nancy N. Jacobs
Steve Yarbrough:
A Biography
By Joey Sherrard (SHS)
The Mississippi Delta, with its rich culture and heritage,
is a breeding ground for beautiful prose of all genres, and
more importantly, a breeding ground for excellent writers.
One would believe that a young writer would feel blessed to
be born in a place so full of history ripe to be picked and
translated to paper. But Steve Yarbrough, an excellent
Mississippi writer in his own right, feels differently.
As a youth, Yarbrough wanted to escape from the stifling heat
of the Delta. His reading expressed his desire to leave.
"I read a lot, exotic stuff, Graham Greene, suspense fiction,
and so on," Yarbrough says of his youth. "Certainly,
all the reading I did led me toward becoming a writer" (McMurtrey
1F). 
Yarbrough has since changed his opinions about Mississippi.
He now says, "I think Mississippi is the best place in
the world for a writer to grow up. It's not a bland place,
and people there tend to be very passionate about life," he
said in a recent personal interview.. But his early readings
and influences helped to spawn Yarbrough's own unique style
of writing.
James Yarbrough was born to John and Earlene Yarbrough in Indianola,
Mississippi, on August, 1956. He attended Indianola
Academy and graduated there in 1975. From there,
he went on to attend Ole Miss and then he earned his graduate
degree at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, working
with fellow Mississippi writer James Whitehead. Yarbrough
then taught at Virginia Tech for four years before accepting
a position to teach creative writing at California State University
in Fresno. He has remained there the past ten years (McMurtrey
1F). He also lived briefly in Poland in 1992. (Yarbrough)
Yarbrough is married and has two daughters.
Yarbrough has published three books, Family Men,
Veneer, and Mississippi History.
The latter is a collection of short  stories,
all set in his hometown of Indianola, Mississippi.
Yarbrough draws on many different experiences and backgrounds,
including his time in Poland and his father, to weave nine diverse
tales. Yarbrough has won the National Endowment for the
Arts Fellowship for fiction writing and recently was awarded
a Pushcart Prize for nonfiction for a story titled "Preacher"
(Personal Interview). Despite living in California,
Yarbrough has kept in touch with his roots in Mississippi through
his writing and interviews and appearances. He spoke at
Mississippi State University after Mississippi History
was published. Veneer,
another short story collection, has just been published
this fall (1998), and The Oxygen Man, his first
novel, (for which he sold the screen rights before he sold the
book) will be in bookstores in the spring (Personal Interview).
See update below.
UPDATE:2010
STEVE YARBROUGH is now the author of three story collections
and six novels, the most recent of which is Safe
from the Neighbors. In 2005, while teaching English
at Fresno State, he was one of five people to be nominated for
the prestigious the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for his novel
Prisoners of War, a novel about a
group of World War II German POWs working on Mississippi farms
as day laborers. In 2006 Yarbrough, then the James and Coke
Hallowell Professor of Creative Writing at Fresno State was
named to the B.B. King Museum Foundation advisory board. Both
King and Yarbrough are from the Indianola, MS, area. Also in
2006, Steve Yarbrough who had his novel, The End
of California, selected as a monthly selection
by the Book of the Month Club. In 2009 Yarbrough became Professor
Emeritus at California State University, Fresno. Now in 2010,
he currently lives in Massachusetts and is Acting Chair and
Professor of Writing, Literature & Publishing at Emerson
College in Boston.
He is married to the Polish literary translator Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough,
and they have two daughters, Tosha and Lena. He lives in Stoneham,
Massachusetts
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A Review of Mississippi
History
by Joey Sherrard (SHS)
Steve Yarbrough once asked a fellow Mississippi writer, "Why
have so many of us become writers?" The reply was that
their writing was an attempt to escape (McMurtrey 1F).
Escape is exactly what Yarbrough accomplishes in his collection
of short stories Mississippi History. He
does not escape from Mississippi, the Delta, or even his hometown
of Indianola, but Yarbrough does escape into the lives of nine
individuals who reside in Indianola.
The book's rather bland title is a bit misleading. History
does play a large part in the lives of Yarbrough's nine protagonists,
whether they are running from it or attempting to recall it.
But the stories are more about life and the pain, joy, and sadness
that come with it. 
Yarbrough conveys the confused emotions of his characters convincingly
through terse, tough prose. He manages to put the reader
in the character's lives to the point where the reader can sometimes
empathize instead of just sympathize. At the very least,
the reader can identify with the emotions felt, if not the experiences
lived.
Yarbrough's style is a double-edged sword, though. It
can be slightly cliched and can suffer from an "artlessness,"
as stated by literary critic Suzanne Berne (Berne 7).
But life can also be artless and cliched, and Berne went on
to say that "oddly enough, this artlessness is the book's principal
strength" (Berne 7). Yarbrough finds his best way to describe
life is how it often is-- unpoetic and rough.
A dominant theme in all of Yarbrough's stories is internal
conflict. All of his characters experience it to some
degree. Some of the poignant examples that were created
from Yarbrough's imagination include a man dealing with the
loss of his wife and his teenage daughter's pregnancy simultaneously,
and a woman facing an old flame that has come back to haunt
her.
Perhaps the most interesting tale is the title story, "Mississippi
History," which deals with racism and friendship. Kenny,
a middle-class white child, becomes best friends with the child
of a successful Jewish family with connections to the all-white
academy they both attend. Their favorite class is a Mississippi
history class which they enjoy partly because the teacher tells
racist jokes. 
But when the victim of one joke is Jew, Kenny's
Jewish friend becomes upset. Kenny begins to realize this
double-standard, and the story deals with the ramifications
that follow.
I found the best story in the collection to be "Hoe Hands."
Yarbrough draws on his musical knowledge as a child (Yarbrough,
"Guitar Lessons") and the classic picture of the agriculture-driven
Delta to forge a beautiful story. Yarbrough shows how
music can bridge the gap between two peoples, and how fear and
hatred can push them apart.
The story involves the narrator and Tea Burns, a black tenant
farmer who works for the narrator's grandfather. The two
share an understanding of the Delta blues, but it is short-lived
because of conflict between Tea's wife and the narrator's grandmother.
Yarbrough's prose is at its best, and the reader can almost
taste the Delta dust and hear Tea Burns's wailing lyrics.
As in any collection, some of the stories are stronger, but
I can truthfully say I enjoyed every one. Every story
is memorable for the sole reason that each one highlights Yarbrough's
strength, and that is the translation of real life, sweet and
sad, to paper.
Mississippi History is an excellent example of
the literary talent that teems in the Mississippi Delta and
a revealing glimpse into the "history" being made there every
day.
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Interview with
Steve Yarbrough
by Joey Sherrard (SHS)
1. Where and when were you born? What
were your parents' names? What high school did you graduate
from? Do you have any other information describing your
life to date that you would like to have in your biography?
I was born in Indianola, Mississippi, on August 29,
1956. I graduated from Indianola Academy in 1975.
My parents' names are John and Earlene Yarbrough. I've
published two books, Mississippi History and
Family Men.
(Note: A collection of short stories entitled Veneer
has just been published in the fall of 1998.)
2. Who is your favorite author?
I've got lots of favorite writers. But if I had
to pick just one, I guess I'd say it's James Salter.
3. What author do you believe has influenced
you the most?
As far as who has influenced me the most, it may well
be the Irish short story writer William Trevor--he's another
of my favorites. Also, Alice Munro. And certainly
Salter himself.
4. Is Mississippi History based
on people in your hometown of Indianola?
Mississippi History really isn't based on people
in Indianola, even though that's where it's set. Those
characters are all products of my own imagination.
5. When did you become interested in writing?
Was there anything in particular?
I got interested in writing when I was still in high
school. I loved to read because books could take
me places I never expected I'd be able to go. And now,
even though I've been to a lot of those places in the flesh,
I still find the trips I took to them in the books just as
vivid and memorable as the real trips turned out to be.
In some cases, more so.
6. How long did it take you to write Mississippi
History?
I think it took me about two years to write Mississippi
History. Part of the book was actually written in Poland,
where I lived briefly back in 1992.
7. Are you working on a book right now?
Do you have any information about it you would like to talk
about?
I've got two new books coming out. A collection
of stories titled Veneer will be published this fall, and
my first novel, The Oxygen Man, will appear next spring.
8. Have you received any awards for
your writing?
I won a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
in fiction writing, and recently I won a Pushcart Prize for
nonfiction for a piece titled "Preacher."
9. What advice do you have for future writers? 
As far as advice goes, the most important thing is
to read widely. Don't limit your reading just to Southern
writers, or detective writers, or just any kind of writers.
Read the best books you can get your hands on, and pay careful
attention to the world around you; it's a rich place.
10. What advice do you have for students
today?
Your education will be the most valuable
thing you ever get--I wish I had understood that when I was
younger.
Photo above by Nancy N. Jacobs
11. How much has living in Mississippi influenced
your writing?
I think Mississippi is the best place in the world
for a writer to grow up. It's not a bland place, and
people there tend to be very
passionate about life. And despite what a lot of people
outside the state might think, it's a place where books still
matter; people read there, and they're proud of their writers.
I wouldn't trade my childhood there for anything.
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Related
Websites
Yarbrough's
faculty page at Emerson College in Boston.
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TO TOP OF PAGE
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Bibliography
Berne, Suzanne. "Southern Discomfort." New
York Times Book Review 6 Nov. 1994: 7.
Grier, Crystal. "Writers to Speak at Symposium."
The Spectator 13 Oct. 1994: 6. 
Jacobs, Nancy. "Photos of Steve Yarbrough."
1997.
McMurtrey, Linda A. "Indianola Writer's Mississippi
History Permeates His Work." The Clarion-Ledger
25 Sept. 1994, natl. ed.: 1F.
Yarbrough, Steve. "Guitar Lessons." Oxford
American 16 (1997) : 21-26.
Yarbrough, Steve. Mississippi History. Columbia,
Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1994. Yarbrough,
Steve. Personal Interview. 13 Apr. 1997.
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