I am a former foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and Dean Emeritus of the College of Media at the University of Illinois where I was also a Professor of Journalism. My book, Finding Billy Battles, is the first in a trilogy of novels. I am 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. During my career as a foreign correspondent I lived and worked in Japan, Southeast Asia and Latin America where I covered several major stories including the fall of South Vietnam and Cambodia in 1975; the 1989 Tiananmen Square tragedy in Beijing; Afghanistan during the last year of the Russian occupation; and revolutions in Nicaragua, El Salvador an Guatemala. My work as a correspondent was rewarded with several awards, including three Pulitzer nominations; the Inter-American Press Association's Tom Wallace Award for coverage of Central and South America; the Peter Lisagor Award from the Society of Professional Journalists; and three Edward Scott Beck Awards. I write a blog entitled "ForeignCorrespondent" that can be found at: http://j-hawker.blogspot.com/. My Website and authors pages can be found at: http://www.ronaldyatesbooks.com/ and at the Authors' Guild: http://www.ronaldyates.com/index.htm and on Amazon's Author Central page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KHDVZI. I am a proud graduate of the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas.