R.T. Smith

R.T. Smith (born 1947 in Washington, D.C.) is an award-winning American poet, fiction writer, and editor. The author of twelve poetry collections and a collection of short fiction, Smith is the editor of Shenandoah, a prestigious literary journal published by Washington and Lee University.

Life
Rodney T. Smith grew up in Georgia and North Carolina. Smith received his higher education at Georgia Tech, the University of North Carolina, and Appalachian State University. He now lives in Rockbridge County, Virginia.

Career
While at Appalachian State University, Smith founded Cold Mountain Review. He also taught for nineteen years as an English professor at Auburn University, where he was named an Alumni Writer-In-Residence.

At Auburn Smith co-edited Southern Humanities Review. He currently serves as editor of Shenandoah, a prestigious literary journal published by Washington and Lee University, where he also teaches creative writing and literature courses in the English Department. He teaches poetry and fiction in the Low-Residency MFA program in Creative Writing at Converse College www.converse.edu/mfa His poetry and stories are identified with Southern literature and have been published in magazines and literary journals such as The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, Southern Humanities Review, and The Kenyon Review.

Recognition
Smith's writings have won the Pushcart Prize and have been collected in Best American Short Stories and New Stories From the South. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the North Carolina Arts Council, and the Alabama Council on the Arts (he also received the Alabama Governor's Award for Achievement by an Artist). Two of his poetry collections have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Other awards include the Library of Virginia Poetry Prize and the Maurice English Poetry Award.

Poetry

 * From the High Dive (1983)
 * The Cardinal Heart (1991).
 * Hunter-Gatherer (Livingston University Press, 1996)
 * Trespasser (1996).
 * Split the Lark: Selected Poems (1999)
 * Messenger (Louisiana State University Press, 2001).
 * Brightwood (Louisiana State University Press, 2003)
 * The Hollow Log Lounge (University of Illinois Press, 2003).

Fiction

 * Faith: Stories (Black Belt Press, 1995)
 * Uke Rivers Delivers: Stories (Yellow Shoe Press, 2006)
 * The Calaboose Epistles (Iris Press, 2009)

Edited

 * Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets of Virginia (2003, with Sarah Kennedy).