Biography

C.W. Smith is the author of nine novels, a collection of short stories, another of essays, and a memoir. A tenth novel, Girl Flees Circus, will be published by the University of New Mexico Press in September of 2022 as part of the inauguration of the Lynn and Lynda Miller Southwest Fiction Series. Aside from a long career in teaching - he is the emeritus Dedman Family Distinguished Professor of English at SMU - he has worked as a musician, a newspaper reporter, a swamper on a pipe truck, a roustabout, a paper delivery boy, oil field hand, frame carpenter, and roofer. When he's not writing and reading, he likes to be on his bike accompanied by his wife, Marcia, and he volunteers with the Dallas Wilkinson Center food pantry and as a clerk and translator at the Human Rights Initiative of North Texas.

He has twice received the Jesse H. Jones Novel Award from the Texas Institute of Letters; the Southwestern Library Association Award for Best Novel; the Dobie-Paisano Creative Writing Fellowship from the University of Texas; National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships in 1976 and 1990; the Texas Headliner's Feature Story award; the Frank O'Connor Memorial Short Story Award from Quartet magazine; the John H. McGinnis Short Story Award from Southwest Review; a Pushcart Prize Nomination from Southwest Review; Special Merit Award for Feature Writing from the Penney-Missouri Foundation; the Stanley Walker Award for Journalism from the Texas Institute of Letters, an SMU Research-Travel Grant, and an award for Best Nonfiction Book by a Texan in 1987 from the Southwestern Booksellers Association, and an award for Outstanding Book of the Southwest from the Border Regional Library Association. The Texas Institute of Letters named him a Lon Tinkle Fellow for "sustained excellence in a career," and gave him the Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story of 2009. He belongs to PEN, The Authors Guild, Writer's Guild of America West, the Texas Institute of Letters, and the Writer’s League of Texas.

You can find additional information about C.W. Smith on Wikipedia.

HIs contact via email - cwsmith at smu (dot) edu