WiDo Publishing: Where do you get your ideas? What is your inspiration?
Paul H. Yarbrough: From people and their
particular milieu. From their imperfections—because people weren’t created for imperfection,
they were, in the beginning, created perfect. They are born into imperfection.
Pretty hard not to find stories among such a cast of characters. Daymond
Runyond once said, “show me characters and I will find a story.” So I write
about people and places that I know.
The best writing
advice is from C.S. Lewis: “Write stories you would like to read.”
WP: When did you start writing? How long have you wanted to be a
writer?
Yarbrough: I wrote when I was 12 or 13 but didn’t really pursue it. I just
liked to make up stories.
WP: What are your passions and hobbies?
Yarbrough: I like to fish and play golf. I do love to write flash fiction
although most leaves my head before I can write it down. I think up little
bitty stories while driving or while in the shower when I don’t really have
time to jot anything down.
WP: What do you feel your strengths and weaknesses are as a writer?
Yarbrough: A strength would be a good memory. Weaknesses? As I said, we are
all imperfect!
WP: Who is your favorite protagonist and who is your favorite villain in
"Mississippi Cotton"?
Yarbrough: BB is the hero. He is
a composite of two real life men. One is a black man I met in East Texas a few
years ago. He was the hardest working man I ever met. He farmed, mended fences,
painted, carpentered on the local church and worked for others sometimes
without pay just to help them. And he always seemed content. The other man is
the actor Morgan Freeman. Someone once asked him, “Mr. Freeman, you are
successful and wealthy enough to live anywhere you want; why do you live in
Mississippi?”
His reply: “Because I
am successful and wealthy enough to live anywhere I want.”
The villain is Draco
Marcus. Some of the vilest men to ever seek wealth and prominence were the
carpetbaggers, scalawags and their 20th century lineage. They hated
Southerners—black, white and infirmed.
WP: Why did you decide to submit your manuscript to WiDo?
Yarbrough: I found that to get to a major publisher you had to get through
the daunting task of getting an agent (I had over a hundred and fifty agent
rejects—most without much more than a synopsis sent). I started looking for
small presses and followed online screening services (eliminating
self-publishers and those that were not recommended). I found WiDo and
thought that it would be interested in stories (though they might or might not like
mine) that could stand as G to PG.
Bio:
Paul H. Yarbrough: Born and reared in
Jackson, Mississippi. Attended Miss State University, University of Louisiana
and University of Houston. Graduated with a degree in Mathematics, Physics and
went to graduate school in applied mathematics and geophysics.
Education actually began at home. But
through a great blessing he will always remember being part of one of the
finest high schools in the country—W.B. Murrah, led by a fine gentleman, Howard
J. Cleland.
A career as a petroleum landman
followed with Houston companies, then independent until present. Has written
another novel, “The Tennessee Walls” (unpublished) and has begun another, “A
Mississippi Whisper,” two short short stories and a single nonfiction piece,
all for online publication.