Mississippi Transplant: Steve Yates

"I’m a cow-punk, suburban hick from the Ozarks. Whose life is this I’m leading thanks to Mississippi?"

What does it mean to call Mississippi home? Why do people choose to leave or live in this weird, wonderful, and sometimes infuriating place? Originally from Springfield, Missouri, Steve Yates’s career has been built around writers and writing. In 1998, he moved to Mississippi to work at the University Press of Mississippi, where he now serves as Associate Director / Marketing Director. Since then, Steve has authored six books, including the new release The Lakes of Southern Hollow. Living in Mississippi has strengthened Steve’s identity as a writer. “Growing up, when I told people in the Ozarks I wanted to be a writer, they looked at me like I wanted to wear a three-piece suit to work at the bait shop. Mississippi treasures its writers as golden exports.” Today, Steve shares his reasons—from the practical to the poetic—for remaining rooted in Mississippi.

Steve Yates lives in Flowood. Photo by Ellie Banks.

Where are you from?

I was born and reared in Springfield, Missouri, the town that brought you Bass Pro Shops, O’Reilly Automotive, and the first Sam’s Club. Oh, and we brought you Brad Pitt and Cashew Chicken. Springfield is the largest city in the Ozarks, and the third largest city in Missouri.

When did you move to Mississippi and why did you move here?

I came to Mississippi in 1998 to work at University Press of Mississippi in Jackson. At that time, I was a publicist and assistant marketing manager at the University of Arkansas Press. After pestering and questioning Hunter McKelva Cole and Seetha Srinivasan at multiple scholarly conferences for four years, I knew that Mississippi had something really special in its university press. It was a first-rate operation with tons of reach, profile, and knowledge. I could not believe my luck when I was hired.

Mississippi treasures its writers as golden exports. Children can grow up here wanting to be writers and can say so out loud, and no one drags them to a counselor.

What does “home” mean to you? How does Mississippi fit into that definition?

I wrestle with this. I lived twenty-one years in my parents’ house on Meadowview Avenue in Southern Hills Subdivision in Springfield. Now, my wife, Tammy Gebhart Yates, and I have lived twenty-six years in our home in Flowood on Windwood Circle in Laurelwood Subdivision. So which then is home? Maybe in the same way we live with a left brain and a right brain, that’s home to me: one hemisphere of Southern Hills Subdivision in Springfield, Missouri; one hemisphere of Laurelwood Subdivision in Flowood, Mississippi.

Steve with author David Evans.

What do you miss most about the place where you’re from?

My Dad. Friends, writers, and Ozarks authors I’ve worked with, pals from bands I played in. And the water. Water in the Ozarks has so much more limestone in it. It tastes vastly different from the water in Flowood. You forget that until you get home and drink a cold glass. I miss crystal clear rivers and streams such as Ingalls Creek and Greasy Creek. Catching a bass from clear water when you can see the bite as it happens, that’s a thrill I miss. And scissor-tailed flycatchers, I miss their miraculous flight.

How have you cultivated community in Mississippi? Who are the people who have made you feel rooted here?

My fellow parishioners at St. Paul Catholic Church in Flowood, they’re wonderful. Co-workers at University Press of Mississippi have taught me so much and cared for our well-being. And Tammy and I both worked at the Clarion-Ledger. I moonlighted there because when we landed here in the late 1990s, Tammy had to work nights at the newspaper. I never saw her. So I said, You know what? I still have my Gannett card; they’ll hire me. That news crew there at the Ledger—good people. We just enjoyed a reunion with a bunch of them at Joe White’s White Picket Fence Books in Mendenhall. Those three circles of love surround us and keep us inspired and rooted.

I’m a cow-punk, suburban hick from the Ozarks. Whose life is this I’m leading thanks to Mississippi?