Steve Yarbrough
Born in Indianola, Mississippi, he received his B.A. and M.A. in English from the University of Mississippi and his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Arkansas. Writing largely within the Southern tradition, he draws his themes and characters from Southern history and mores in ways that have been compared to Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, and Willie Morris.
Yarbrough's major works include the novels The End of California (2006), Prisoners of War (2004), Visible Spirits (2001) and The Oxygen Man (1999), as well as short story collections such as Family Men (1990), Mississippi History (1994) and Veneer (1998). His latest novel, Safe from the Neighbors, was published by Knopf in 2010.
His honors include the Mississippi Authors Award, the California Book Award, and an award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. His novel, Prisoners of War, was a finalist for the 2005 PEN/Faulkner award. His work has been translated into Dutch, Japanese and Polish and published in the United Kingdom.
A professor of creative writing for many years at California State University, Fresno, Yarbrough recently joined the faculty in the Department of Writing, Literature and 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.
“At the age of twenty, I failed to grasp the difference between guilt, which can almost always be atoned for, and grief, which can only be borne.”
“It's a lot easier to say when something ended rather than when it began. Most of us can recognize the end from a mile away, but the beginning always slips up on us, lulling us into thinking what we're living through is yet another moment, in yet another day.”
“Every place is different, but every place is the same, because you carry yourself with you wherever you go.”