Welcome to our newest feature Who’s on Fourth. One member of the yeah write community will interview another yeah writer, and the interview will publish the fourth Monday of each month. Our inaugural interview features Arden Ruth of Arden Ruth Writes interviewing Christie Tate of The Outlaw Mama. Christie hasn’t missed more than one challenge grid since joining yeah write nearly 100 challenges ago. That’s quite the streak. Enjoy learning more about her below…

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yeah write on yeah write: Arden interviews Christie

She burst on the scene of yeah write in the spring of 2012, eager and willing to show everyone what she could do. She was the Outlaw Mama and she had something to prove.

OUTLAW: (n.) A person who refuses to be governed by the established rules or practices of a group; rebel; nonconformist.

OUT OF LAW: (n.) A person who has left the practice of law; one who no longer practices law for her profession. See also unemployed person; happier person; no-longer-reviewing-thousands-of-pages-of-documents for a living.

If time travel existed, Outlaw Mama would go back and forget the legal career that she eventually left in the dust. In her own words, “I want to rewrite my actual narrative to one that makes me seem like a woman destined to be the next Toni Morrison or Joyce Carol Oates.” The urge to write wouldn’t have waited until she was 38 to explode from within her. Like they say, hindsight is 20/20. What she knows to be true, however, is that her writing wouldn’t be the same without the experiences of those years, especially the births of her two children.

For us yeah write newbies, we view Outlaw Mama as a grid master. We see that straw-hat adorned baby pop up every week and we know who has come to play.

It wasn’t always that easy for her.

Outlaw Mama yearned to be among the top posts at the end of each week. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen that way. Life on the grid wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns at first. As all of us can relate, seeing your post fall to the bottom can be quite the kick in the gonads to a writer’s self-esteem. I’m sure there are some that don’t come back. Outlaw Mama could have left the grid forever, never to return and rise to her full yeah write glory. But she didn’t. She came back week after week and eventually became the Outlaw Mama that we all know (and envy) today. It soon became less about the additional page views and more about the people. She made friends on the grid and they watched as her posts rose higher and higher. Unsurprisingly, this is her sole piece of advice for yeah write newbies:

“I’m going to borrow from the 12-step recovery lexicon and say KEEP COMING BACK. Keep putting your best stuff out there and your best will get better. You’ll make friends. You’ll get to know people. You’ll get thicker skin, and you will have committed. Put some skin in the game every week.”

Whether it’s theories on death and transformation or questionable clothing choices in Fifty Shades of Grey, Outlaw Mama has proven herself to be a force to be reckoned with on the grid each and every week.

Well, now I’m just preaching to the choir. We all know Outlaw Mama was born to write, but what else was she born to do?

a. Worship Willie Nelson

b. Become a vegan chef

c. Survive the polar vortex

If you guessed all of the above, then you are well on your way to becoming an expert in the world of Outlaw Mama (aka Christie).

When I asked Christie if she had any non-writing hobbies, her immediate response was a resounding HELL YES!

“Willie Nelson is a hobby of mine.”

I had never really considered people as hobbies before but I knew I had much to learn from the Outlaw. Thankfully, she elaborated. She collects his music, reads books by and about him, and especially loves boring everyone to death with trivia about him.

For example, did you know that Willie Nelson was born in Abbott, Texas, which is about 30 miles up the highway from Forreston, Texas, where Christie’s father and grandfather were both born?

Now you do.

She has already offered to lend me the biography of Willie Nelson that she is currently reading.

I never asked.

When she’s not counting the hairs in Willie’s braids, Christie has taken up a new hobby of vegan cooking. So far, not so good. Fried sage & pumpkin ravioli? I’ll just order pizza, but thanks.

However, as we all know, Outlaw Mama is not one to give up when something doesn’t go right the first time. At the very least, I foresee winning posts on the yeah write grid dedicated to her culinary catastrophes.

Though born in Texas, she has now made her home in Chicago. She has learned to cope with the weather, battling the polar vortex with as much fervor as she puts into her writing. Pipes may have burst. Rats may or may not have died in her minivan, but Christie came out victorious.

Christie: 1

Polar Vortex: 0

Christie is a woman of many talents and we would all be wise to study her skills. I concluded our interview with the most hard-hitting question of all.

What is your spirit animal?

I imagined Christie as perhaps a Bee (organized; productive; wise) or a Butterfly (transformation; balance; grace; ability to accept change).

I was wrong.

“Larry King is my spirit animal. When I am faced with something I don’t want to do, I ask myself: Would I rather clean this toilet (or braid my daughter’s dirty hair, or write this thing for work that makes no sense) or have sex with Larry King? So far, there is nothing I have faced that I think is worse than having sex with Larry King. When my son had the runs it was close, but nope, not having sex with Larry King.”

There you have it. She goes by many names. She is a writer, a mother, and a yeah write legend.

She is the Outlaw Mama.

You can follow Christie on Facebook at Outlaw Mama or on Twitter at @TheOutlawMama.