Photo provided by Curtis Smith.
By: Alexandra Gonzalez ’23, staff writer
Curtis Smith, LVC adjunct professor and author of more than 100 published stories and essays, is one of two writers who will visit the LVC campus community this spring as part of the Writing: A Life series.
There will be a public reading via Zoom on March 1, at 7 p.m., where Smith will read an excerpt from his fifth novel and 13th book, “The Magpie’s Return.” The reading will be available to LVC students, staff, faculty and the larger community. Smith will visit classes virtually on March 2, from 12:30-1:50 p.m.
Smith started writing “The Magpie’s Return” in response to the events happening in Syria about five or six years ago.
“I thought about how we can sometimes look at something so awful and then go about our business because the people don’t look like us or they’re so far away or they don’t speak our language or they practice a different religion,” Smith said. “I wanted to write a story about an American girl lost in that kind of chaos and upheaval – and perhaps have it resonated with readers because the characters and background are more relatable. … And fiction is a vehicle that can make us care in a way other mediums can’t.”
The novel’s main character, Kayla, is a genius whose intellect is both a blessing and a curse. Another recent novel by Smith, “Lovepain,” focuses on a father’s relationship with his son amid intensive familial chaos.
“Curtis Smith has a real skill for bringing his characters to life, no matter who those characters are,” Dr. Holly M. Wendt, associate professor of English, director of creative writing and director of Writing: A Life, said.
In addition to his own creative work, Smith is an extremely involved literary citizen. He is the interviews editor at JMWW journal, which has published nearly 50 reviews and interviews since 2015. Smith himself has written interviews with well over 100 authors.
“I’m happy to be where I am in this field – editors and publishers have been very good to me – and I feel the need to give back, to help sustain the whole system that has lifted up me and my work,” Smith said.
His participation in the Writing: A Life series is one more act of literary citizenship.
The series started in 2016, originally funded by the President’s Innovation Fund. Wendt and Dr. Cathy Romagnolo, professor of English, who was the English Department Chair at the time, co-sponsored the grant application.
“When we submitted the proposal, we were looking for a way to make our visiting writers’ series distinctive and to use it to offer students in creative writing and English something really special: a chance to meet one-on-one with the writer in residence to conference on the students’ own work,” Wendt said.
The series strives to bring one writer in residence and three additional accomplished writers to campus each academic year for class visits, workshops and readings.
The first visiting writer and writer in residence was Nina McConigley, author of the story collection “Cowboys and East Indians.” LVC graduate Adam Tavel, poets Adrian Matejka and Aracelis Girmay, and former dancer and essayist Reneé E. d’Aoust are among the accomplished writers who have visited campus since.
“For the purposes of Writing: A Life, I am defining ‘accomplished writers’ as writers who can provide a panoply of experiential and artistic knowledge in the context of a teaching environment,” Wendt said. “Another crucial piece of the puzzle is that the art the writers create feels alive and engage with the world and the literary landscape.”
Lauren Walters, a junior English and creative writing major, is the series’ student assistant director this year. The series is currently funded by Academic Affairs and Provost Cowart’s office. The Department of Humanities and Marketing & Communications provides the series with administrative and advertising support.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of “World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments,” which was the Barnes & Noble Book of the Year 2020, will also visit the campus community this spring. She will read from her work on March 16 at 7 p.m.