Erin Elizabeth Smith

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Poet Laureate of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 2022–
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Erin Elizabeth Smith was born in South Carolina. She holds a PhD in creative writing from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. 

Smith is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, most recently DOWN (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2020). 

Smith serves as the executive director of Sundress Publications and the Sundress Academy for the Arts. She is also a distinguished lecturer in the English department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and serves as the poet laureate of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In 2023, Smith received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship.