Ronald E. Yates's Blog
October 12, 2025
An Uncommon Love of Words & Writing
This is a re-post of a blog post I did a while back. It is one of those timeless pieces about a one-of-a-kind journalism professor and his love of words and writing. Take a look. I bet you will find it fascinating and helpful. In any case, I hope you ...
October 9, 2025
Q & A with Novel PASTimes Part 2
I was recently interviewed online by NovelPASTimes http://www.novelpastimes.com/ a blog for Historical Fiction Lovers. Here is Part Two. What would you like readers to gain from reading your book(s)? Because the Finding Billy Battles trilogy is historical fiction and is set in the 19th and 2oth Centuries, I would like ...
October 8, 2025
Q & A with Novel PASTimes Part 1
I was recently interviewed online by NovelPASTimes http://www.novelpastimes.com, a blog for Historical Fiction Lovers. Here is Part One. Tell us a little about what you write. I write both fiction and non-fiction. Currently, my books fall into the historical-fiction/action-adventure categories. My previous books have been journalism textbooks, a corporate ...
October 5, 2025
America’s New Warfighting Military: Old Blood and Guts Would Be Proud
Late last month, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told an unprecedented gathering of generals, admirals, commanders, and senior NCOs that from this moment on, the only mission of the newly named Department of War is this: “warfighting, preparing for war, and preparing to win, [and being] unrelenting and uncompromising in ...
October 3, 2025
A Little Shameless Self-Promotion: Three Reviews of the Finding Billy Battles Trilogy
For most of my professional life, I worked as a reporter and foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. I feel privileged to have been a journalist during one of that newspaper’s golden eras—from about 1969 to 1997 when I left to teach journalism as a professor and dean at the ...
September 28, 2025
Today’s America Hating Migrants vs. the Huddled Masses of the Past
When my maternal Great-grandparents immigrated from Denmark to Northeastern Kansas in the 1890s, they were ecstatic. For something like 200 years, their ancestors had endured a serf-like existence on a baronial estate on the Danish island of Langeland. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, millions of like-minded Europeans immigrated ...
September 23, 2025
Trump Opens a Big Can of Whoop Ass on the United Nations
President Trump finally did what other American presidents have failed to do: he opened a can of verbal whoop ass on the United Nations. He blasted the U.N. for funding illegal immigration to the United States and many European nations and took it to task for a litany of other ...
September 17, 2025
Q & A With Ron Yates On Writing Fiction (Part 3)
Over the past few years, I have been a guest on several radio and podcast shows, discussing topics such as writing fiction and the craft of writing in general. I posted the first two of those interviews for the past two. Today, I am posting Part 3. I hope you ...
September 16, 2025
Q & A With Ron Yates on Writing Fiction (Part 2)
Over the past few years, I have been a guest on several radio and podcast interviews discussing topics such as writing fiction and writing in general. I am posting those interviews as a three-part series for the next couple of days. I hope you find these posts interesting and, most ...
September 15, 2025
Q & A With Ron Yates On Writing Fiction (Part 1)
Over the past few years, I have been a guest on several radio and podcast interviews discussing topics such as writing fiction and writing in general. I am posting those interviews as a three-part series for the next couple of days. I hope you find these posts interesting and, most ...
