Missouri State alumnus and author Steve Yates will return to campus to read from his newly released novella “Sandy and Wayne,” at 7 p.m. Feb. 5 in Plaster Student Union Theater.

 

Award-winning novella teases out Ozarks love story

Set in the rugged, crumbling shale of Arkansas’ Boston Mountains, “Sandy and Wayne” is a love story between Sandy, the lead inspector for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, and Wayne, a dirt foreman.

From their harbored ambitions to the secret that threatens to pull their lost hearts apart, the novella tells a story of worlds colliding, of truths and consequences, as two people fall in love, reluctant to change with the world around them.

The novella earned the Big Fiction Magazine’s Knickerbocker Prize and was a finalist for the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society William Faulkner/Wisdom Award for the Best Novella.

More about Yates

Yates is assistant director/marketing director at University Press of Mississippi in Jackson, and lives in Flowood, Miss., with his wife Tammy. He has won national recognition for three other books, “Some Kinds of Love: Stories,” “Morkan’s Quarry” and “The Teeth of the Souls.”

Yates regularly returns to Springfield to share his experiences and books. His last Springfield reading in March 2015 delved into his Moon City Press book “The Teeth of the Souls.”

Event details

Date: Feb. 5
Time: 7 p.m.
Location: PSU Theater

The spring 2016 reading series is presented by the creative writing program, the department of English and the College of Arts & Letters.