R. T. Smith was born in Washington D.C. and raised in Georgia and North Carolina. He was educated at Georgia Tech, UNC and Appalachian State and taught for nineteen years at Auburn University, where he served as Alumni Writer-in-Residence and co-editor of Southern Humanities Review. Since 1995 he has been the editor of Shenandoah for Washington and Lee University, where he serves as Writer-in-Residence. He has also taught in visiting writer capacity at VMI and Converse College. Smith’s previous collections of fiction are Faith and Uke Rivers Delivers, which was published in LSU’s Yellow Shoe Fiction Series. His stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories, Best American Mystery Stories, New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. His poetry collections Messenger and Outlaw Style received the Library of Virginia Poetry Award in 2002 and 2008. Smith lives in Rockbridge County, Virginia with his wife, the poet Sarah Kennedy.
