Mattie Quesenberry Smith

Mattie Quesenberry Smith was born in Radford, Virginia, on June 4, 1963, and grew up in Montgomery County, Virginia. She earned a BA in biology and English literature from Hollins University, an MA in English literature and creative writing, and a PhD in curriculum and instruction from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 2024. 

The author of the chapbook Mother Chaos: Under Electric Light (Finishing Line Press, 2008), Quesenberry Smith has published essays, poems, and creative nonfiction in various anthologies, journals, magazines, and online platforms, including The Laureate Project, New Verse Review, Intersections—Poetry with Mathematics, and Hunger Poems: Poetry X Hunger. 

Quesenberry Smith lived for some time in Washington, D.C., where she served as a legislative assistant handling Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee legislation for a Texas congressman. Throughout this time, she continued to write across genres, including film projects. Between Two Fires, an award-winning film she produced with her husband, received the CINE Golden Eagle Award and Best Documentary at the New York Independent Film and Video Festival. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded the film a Student Academy Award for excellence in graduate-student filmmaking.

Quesenberry Smith has also served as a volunteer in local public schools, a facilitator for creative writing workshops, and an organizer for public readings. Currently, she teaches first-year writing and rhetoric at Virginia Military Institute (VMI) where she was selected for the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s All-Southern Conference Faculty and Staff Team for the 2024–25 academic year, in recognition of her service to VMI and her contributions to campus life and the local community. In November 2024, Smith was appointed as Virginia’s poet laureate through 2026. She lives at the foot of Little House Mountain near Lexington, Virginia.