Ronald E. Yates

Ronald E. Yates is the author of historical fiction and action/adventure novels, including the award-winning Finding Billy Battles trilogy. His extraordinarily accurate novels have captivated fans around the world who applaud his ability to blend historical fact with narrative fiction—a genre he labels “faction.”

Before his career as a novelist, Yates spent 25 years as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. After leaving the Tribune, he joined the University of Illinois as a professor and Journalism Department Head and then served as Dean of the College of Media from 2003 to 2009. He was named Professor Emeritus by the Board of Trustees in 2010.

Since leaving academia, Yates spent several years producing the Finding Billy Battles trilogy, which tells the remarkable story of a man’s audacious and daring life from his birth in 1860 to his death in 1960. The first book in the trilogy (Finding Billy Battles) was published in 2014 and won a Laramie Award and a New Apple Award in the Action/Adventure category.

The second book in the trilogy, The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles, was published in June 2016. It has won multiple awards, including the KCT International Literary Grand Prize Award, First Place in the Literary Category from Chanticleer International Book Awards, a New Apple Literary Award in the Action/Adventure category, a John E. Weaver Excellent Reads Award, and a Book Excellence Award in the Action/Adventure category. It was also a finalist for a Diamond Book Award in the United Kingdom.

In 2019, book three in the trilogy (The Lost Years of Billy Battles) was named the Grand Prize Winner as Overall Best Book of the Year by Chanticleer International Book Awards, as well as Chanticleer’s Goethe Grand Prize in the Historical Fiction Category. The book was also a Medalist Award Winner for Excellence from New Apple Book Awards, and a Grand Prize winner from Book Excellence Awards.

Yates has been a presenting author at the Kansas Book Festival, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and the San Diego Book Festival, among other venues. He is also the author of The Kikkoman Chronicles: A Global Company with A Japanese Soul, published by McGraw-Hill. Other books include Aboard the Tokyo Express: A Foreign Correspondent's Journey through Japan, a collection of columns translated into Japanese, as well as three journalism textbooks: The Journalist's Handbook, International Reporting and Foreign Correspondents, and Business and Financial Reporting in a Global Economy.

As a professional journalist, Yates lived and worked in Japan, Southeast Asia, Mexico, and both Central and South America where he covered several history-making events including the fall of South Vietnam and Cambodia; the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing; and wars and revolutions in Afghanistan, the Philippines, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, among other places.

Yates’s work as a foreign correspondent resulted in three Pulitzer Prize nominations and several other awards. His international reporting won a commendation from the Gerald Loeb Foundation as well as the Inter-American Press Association's Tom Wallace Award for coverage of Central and South America. Yates’ war coverage resulted in three Edward Scott Beck Awards as well as the coveted Peter Lisagor Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.

As a Dean at the University of Illinois, Yates guided the College of Media through several significant changes, including the transition from a 2-year to a 4-year college; the creation of a one million dollar dedicated Student Services Center complete with professional advisers, a data and records administrator, and a career services staff; and in 2008, the name change from College of Communications to College of Media. He also oversaw the creation of a new Department of Media and Cinema Studies.

While Dean, Yates taught classes in International Reporting and Foreign Correspondence, Business and Financial Reporting, and beginning and advanced reporting. He also held the Sleeman Professorship in Business and Financial Journalism and was a member of the advisory boards of the European Union Center, the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, and the Illini Media Co., publisher of the Daily Illini newspaper.

Yates is a frequent speaker about the media and journalism, international affairs, and writing. He lives just north of San Diego in Southern California’s wine country. He is an honors graduate of the University of Kansas and a veteran of the US Army Security Agency, where he served as a SIGINT analyst.

He is a proud graduate of the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas. He served with the US Army Security Agency as a SIGINT analyst.

He writes a Blog and Substack column entitled "ForeignCorrespondent."