R. T. Smith
R. T. Smith was born in Washington, D. C., in 1947, and he was raised in Georgia and North Carolina.
He is the author of numerous poetry collections, including In the Night Orchard: New and Selected Poems (Texas Review Press, 2014) and Outlaw Style (University of Arkansas Press, 2007) and Messenger (Louisiana State University Press, 2001), which both received a Library of Virginia Annual Literary Award. He is also the author of the short story collection Faith (River City Publishing,1995), and he coedited Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets of Virginia (University of Virginia Press, 2003) with Sarah Kennedy.
Smith has received fellowships and grants from Arts International, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and in 2013 he received the Carole Weinstein Prize in Poetry from the Library of Virginia. He has previously taught at Appalachian State University and Auburn University, where he coedited Southern Humanities Review. He currently serves as the writer-in-residence at Washington and Lee University, where he edits Shenandoah. He lives in Virginia.
