Ron Yates has been learning to write for most of his life. He produced good essays in high school, but his adolescent energies were largely devoted to tinkering with old cars, drag racing, drinking beer, and barely staying out of trouble. Although encouraged by his teachers to pursue higher education, Yates, after graduating in lackluster fashion, spent time languishing in factory jobs. An aching back and a caring girlfriend prompted him to explore other options. His enduring love of reading and nascent knack for writing guided him to a degree in English and a career teaching high school. Years later he earned an MFA in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte. His fiction collection, Make It Right: A Novella and Eight Stories, was released in April 2019 from Ardent Writer Press; his novel, Ben Stempton’s Boy, was published later that year by Unsolicited Press of Portland Oregon. Yates, who lives near Alabama’s Mt. Cheaha on the shore of beautiful Lake Wedowee, has published stories in a variety of journals including Hemingway Shorts, The Writing Disorder, KYSO Flash, Still: the Journal, The Oddville Press, and Prime Number Magazine. He is married to his sweetheart Carol Yates, who has succeeded in making him a better man.