Department of English

43 Questions with Dr. Steve Yarbrough!

Posted on July 25, 2022

Dr. Steve Yarbrough specializes in rhetoric and theory courses. He will be retiring from the University next year. We thank him for his dedicated years of service!

1. What’s your favorite time of day?

Sundown on my deck with a bourbon and ice.

2. What’s the biggest learning experience you’ve had as a member of the English Department?

Teaching a seminar on rhetoric and time.

3. What are you most excited about these days?

Gardening with a regular dose of fly fishing.

4. What makes you smile the most?

The kids next door.

5. What’s one thing people don’t know about you?

That I actually like them.

6. What are the three things you can’t live without?

If you mean “things” and not people—enough good food, good drink, and good toilet paper.

7. Window or aisle seat?

Window

8. What’s your current TV show obsession?

“To the Lake”

9. What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve done in your life?

I have to plead the 5^th on that one.

10. How would you define yourself in three words?

Living toward death.

11. What’s inspiring you in life right now?

The Ukrainian people.

12. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received?

“Don’t worry about what you can’t change.”

13. What’s your pet peeve?

People who think they know what God wants.

14. What’s heavily played on your music playlist right now?

Max Richter

15. What’s your favorite board game?

Chess

16. What book did you most recently finish?

The Elegant Universe, by Brian Greene

17. What’s your favorite holiday?

Halloween

18. If you could switch lives with one person for a day, who would it be?

Vladimir Putin. I’d have to be able to warn Bonnie to get out of town first, though. Still, in one day, I could stop the war, install a new government, and resign.

19. What is one book you’ll admit you’ve never read but probably should?

White Noise by Don DeLillo

20. What’s the one thing you wish you knew at age 19?

That I’d live to at least 72.

21. If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

On the Upper Connecticut River in Vermont.

22. What is the best book you’ve ever read?

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

23. What is a fictional city you would love to travel to?

Theed

24. Favorite food?

Oh jeez, Étouffée?

25. Favorite snack?

Cashews

26. What’s the one talent you wish you had?

Having no talent, I’ll take anything.

27. What’s your favorite band?

Derek and the Dominos?

28. What’s a superpower you wish you had?

Invisibility

29. What’s something you don’t want to be doing in 10 years?

Multi-factor authentication, chemotherapy, fighting Civil War II

30. What’s the best thing that happened this year?

COVID vaccine released

31. Which movie makes you laugh the hardest?

The Pink Panther and Monty Python and the Holy Grail

32. What do you do in your free time?

Gardening, fishing, playing chess, reading, trying to figure out a unified field theory for rhetoric, observing the birds interacting in my backyard

33. What’s your favorite color?

Depends on the object.

34. What are three words to describe the English department?

Read, writing, and wrangling

35. What’s one thing you had to learn the hard way?

When to keep my mouth shut (still in progress). Also, carpentry.

36. What’s a trend you would like to see disappear forever?

MAGAism, tattoos, social media

37. What did you want to do with your life at age 12?

Write

38. What do you consider your greatest career achievement?

Writing Levels of Ambience or writing the UNCG Constitution

39. What do you enjoy the most about the English Department?

It’s minimal animosity (as compared to other English departments I’ve been in)

40. What are you working on now?

Accepting my situation.

41. Cats or dogs?

Dogs

42. What are your future plans?

To make some plans.

43. What advice do you have for students?

Avoid people who give advice without being asked.

Dr. Yarbrough’s Faculty Page