https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/events-one daily 0.75 2021-12-29 https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/events-one/event-two-n5se7 monthly 0.5 2021-01-11 https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/events-one/event-one-m5g7f monthly 0.5 2021-12-29 https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/events-one/event-four-cres5 monthly 0.5 2021-01-11 https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/events-one/event-three-lnfer monthly 0.5 2021-01-11 https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/events-one/event-five-hj59x monthly 0.5 2021-01-11 https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/a-throttled-peacock daily 0.75 2022-01-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1c0e2e18-d043-4b70-936b-12ac6b3e0de7/cover+Peacock.png A Throttled Peacock In the mode of such humorists Bill Bryson and David Sedaris, Smith’s essays take a droll and ironic look at the antics of Europeans at home and Americans abroad in this off-beat memoir that gently mocks both traveler and host. In an Oxford University lecture hall, a local mayor wearing a flamboyant ceremonial necklace sets off Smith’s wry meditation on the English love of tradition; in Geneva he learns that a companion with whom you travel 24/7 can be your best friend and your worst enemy; in an ancient French village he learns that pride can lead to hubris when he and his wife introduce multi-national tourists to Texas chili. With an underlying theme of misperception and the surprise of upended expectations, these essays form a singular vision that entertains even as they slyly instruct. As one reader reports, One glory lies in experiencing a deepening emotional and intellectual perspective as both narrator and reader discover more about the people and places. This shifting perception keeps the tales dynamic, almost like detective stories that present a mystery that becomes ever more complex before we reach a resolution. https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/buffalo-nickel daily 0.75 2022-01-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/e215256c-0e11-4b95-9fca-a1ff4e4b07c5/Screen+Shot+2022-01-05+at+3.10.40+PM.png Buffalo Nickel - The Story In 1917 oil was discovered on David Copperfield's land in Oklahoma - and overnight the Kiowa ferryman, a.k.a., Went On A Journey , became a millionaire. From his childhood in the tamed West of a reservation (where buffalo are imported from the Bronx Zoo) to his career as professional Indian in the celluloid Wild West of Hollywood, Buffalo Nickel vividly evokes all the drama and irony of David's life. Here is the moving story of a man torn between two cultures - and two women: Laura Darby, a washed-up vaudeville singer who marries David to grab his money and then ditch him, but sticks around as he becomes a respected movie star and philanthropist; and Iola Conroy, a childhood Kiowa friend and Red Cross nurse who ultimately follows David to California, where she is forced to confront David's marriage - and her own identity. David and his fellow travelers, who also include a crusty oilman and a "do-gooder" disciple of Aimee Semple McPherson, are all trapped by the disorienting aftermath of the white man's conquests of the Indian - and a rage of unfulfilled yearnings erupts as the novel moves toward an explosive climax. Interlaced with native American myths and legends that serve as an illuminating counterpoint to the action of the story, Buffalo Nickel is an all-American novel of love, money, and race - and an epic work of historical imagination. https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/test daily 0.75 2022-01-03 https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/uncle-dad daily 0.75 2022-01-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/94f47e93-d616-4d7f-b138-ea84676dfa4e/Uncle+Dad+cvr.jpeg Uncle Dad - The Story Acclaimed novelist C.W.Smith explored his own experiences as a divorced father-separated from his twin children-in a 1985 Esquire article. The response was so overwhelming that Smith was inspired to write this moving, refreshingly honest memoir of his own broken home. There are no good guys or bad guys, no winners or losers in this sensitive and powerful account. There are only human beings trying to grapple with anger and loneliness and the unending pain of loss-and, ultimately, with the joy of mutual forgiveness and understanding. https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/cfc-arrival daily 0.75 2022-01-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/4816192c-119a-454c-9b59-fe32c21a43dc/Picture2.png CFC ARRIVAL Katherine Stinson - from an aviating family in San Antonio just after WWI https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/714af353-d94d-48e8-9b1c-cfa4efab1903/Flying+Circus+poster.png CFC ARRIVAL Poster for a flying circus that Katie and her parents might've belonged to https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/f50aff25-023e-4929-b08e-062ee6042326/Picture1.png CFC ARRIVAL This might be Amelia but that Avian Moth is hers for sure https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/9a29cd8f-f8f7-405c-8e37-c2864dc7119c/Phoebe+Omlie.png CFC ARRIVAL Phoebe Omlie: One of many dashing young aviatrixes of the period https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/d0090141-73ff-4396-8eda-fc20b7fd6478/Early+Hobbs.png CFC ARRIVAL Photo of Hobbs NM ("NoName") early 1930s https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/ef1cc269-3e99-43cd-809d-92f45ab3ef52/Picture3.png CFC ARRIVAL Bessie Coleman - from Waxahachie TX. There's a USPS stamp in her honor https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/73e671ef-dca5-4c3d-bc21-811cdd1d169a/Picture4.png CFC ARRIVAL Elinor Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/0b7988c1-6c06-402b-b89f-8cd2b668c001/amelia.jpeg CFC ARRIVAL Amelia for sure https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/edf6cbff-5437-409b-adf4-fb02041a4256/cot+house.jpeg CFC ARRIVAL https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/9116570f-4e1a-43b9-b80e-437650ccb6f9/early+hotel.jpeg CFC ARRIVAL Early area hotel https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1641651814319-FKDWTS23EFMGMX7K0KTI/Screen%2BShot%2B2022-01-08%2Bat%2B8.22.40%2BAM.jpg CFC ARRIVAL https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/d53cb9ac-2040-4fe7-9d25-001a909a3912/contestants+Cleveland+Santa+Monica+race.JPG CFC ARRIVAL https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/85d065b6-cab3-4b5a-9121-5960f6431590/IMG_0491.jpeg CFC ARRIVAL Pancho Barnes https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/my-dad-and-trump daily 0.75 2022-01-13 https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/cwsmith-writer daily 1.0 2023-05-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1640738131619-KSDE9LMYRO4TYVL7EARX/epub-step.jpeg CW Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1640738688324-1VWNKXN1Q1B74IB28ZXE/epub-bn.jpeg CW Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1640738793597-157O2I6EA77CTWG1ANHD/book-thinmenofhaddam.jpeg CW Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1640739030436-0J0M0A5R3U0ITDT4X0H0/epub-uw.jpeg CW Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1641315392248-PJTYSDOAJ43SDKYFXOST/cover+Peacock.png CW Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1641406992886-64553HQJNAWA3MHFYXK9/wholeStout1GE.JPG CW Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1641407189545-GHLEL5B8SWVN78DRG29R/PHeartscover.gif CW Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1641407620013-RFZXW49HQ2R9LG1VFPC6/Hunters+Trap+cover.png CW Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1641415714230-TTO1D7O86OYKUAQ3WDOK/VVR+cover.jpeg CW Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1641481458558-G4CF4U8PXQE1C0QL44LJ/COVR+CMUSIC.png CW Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1641492129211-852YTGEETXBLNN7N97JM/cover+lhl.png CW Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1641492839135-CY67RT971QBO6785IDN3/Uncle+Dad+cvr.jpeg CW Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1648234882123-YQT3MFSCF69JYCDQPBXH/Girl+Flees+Circus+cover.jpeg CW Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/cf7dc656-9e1c-480c-9446-037f59a18293/new+cover+with+new+font.jpg CW Smith https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/purple-hearts daily 0.75 2022-01-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/2cbb1a30-c6de-4da9-b09d-81ab73db4686/book-purplehearts.jpeg Purple Hearts - The Story Set during the turmoil of World War II, Purple Hearts is the story of the epileptic scion of an East Texas timber and oil fortune and his marriage to a stunning stranger desperate for sanctuary. Though naive and virginal, thirty-year-old Georgie Karacek wins Sylvia through his charm and kindness. Longing to prove himself, he then hides his illness to join the Army. Sylvia's relationship with Georgie's overprotective mother proves difficult, so to make ends meet she takes on a boarder, Robert, in his absence. Soon he and Sylvia grow close, and he presses her to run away with him. When Georgie's epilepsy comes to light, he is discharged, but on returning home he suspects that his bride and the boarder are lovers. But wartime conditions explode into rioting, and that uproar puts them at odds with the town when Georgie helps a black friend flee. Purple Hearts is based loosely on events in Beaumont, Texas, in June of 1943, when shipyard workers rampaged following a rumor that a black man had raped a sailor’s wife. Several people died and scores were injured, and that riot echoed those in Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles. https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/essays daily 0.75 2022-01-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/c9fe90c0-ab14-47ec-8020-93ce003058fa/Wm+%26+Bill+Smith+Hobbs+%401957.jpg Essays - Work Habit Recently I saw a trailer for the cable show “Black Gold” featuring oil-drenched roughnecks working on a rig, huge boulders of metal swinging wildly like cockeyed pendulum weights about their heads, and I realized that I’d gone my life without proving myself by doing this particular job. You might ask why does that matter? While clearing out a drawer, I found a report card from my ninth grade Civics class. On the back were five subheadings under the title “Work Habits” – 1. Works in Class; 2. Use of Materials; 3. Pride in Work; 4. Initiative; 5. Following Directions. Apparently learning good “Work Habits” was deemed essential to a child’s education in the 1950s, and we were given one of three grades: S for Satisfactory; I for Needs Improvement; and U for Unsatisfactory. I seemed to have had good “work habits” -- in all subcategories save one I garnered a steady row of Ss. In “Following Directions,” during one grading period Mr. Green thought I Needed Improvement. I don’t recall what caused him to mark me down; knowing myself now, I probably decided that my way of doing something was better than the method he proposed to the other students. But I do remember vividly how this wounded me. After all, I was someone who showed Pride in Work. My poor mark seemed to say that he disapproved of me, and winning approval was the very point of learning good work habits. “Pride in Work” didn’t mean simply that I took care in completing and presenting projects, didn’t do something slapdash: it meant that my very willingness and ability to work were themselves sources of pride, apart from any particular assignment. I had pride in the process as much as in the product. Read the full text https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/4ab435a9-75e9-48a6-9799-3a9e8fc6d121/WL+Smith1.jpg Essays - On Becoming One Hundred Everybody thinks it’s a great achievement to live to be one hundred. It’s as if you’d won a triathalon or one of those super-grueling foot races that takes twenty-four hours. You get your picture in the paper sitting in your wheelchair at the old folks’ home surrounded by beaming staff and family members whose smiles look a bit like grimaces while you’re straining to blow out a big candle on a cake they’re holding beneath your chin. Everybody out in the world seems to be convinced it’s a goal we should aspire to. Somebody’s bound to ask to what do you owe your blessed longevity. Down at the place where my Dad was living, they even have a club – The Centenarians – for such high-achievers, and their names are inscribed onto a plaque hanging in the dining hall. (People still think it’s a big deal even though according to a website devoted to these long-livers, the U.S. has about 72,000 available for worship and admiration at the moment.) If you’re going about out in the world escorting one known to be a centenarian, you’ll hear, “One hundred! My, how wonderful! Congratulations!” followed most usually by a personal anecdote about how Auntie made it to 101 or even 103 and could still manage to water-ski and divide 347 by 13 without using a calculator. About a month ago, I was pushing my Dad in his wheelchair down a hallway in the facility where he lived, just to get him out of his room. He was about one week short of 100. In marathoner’s terms, he’d supposedly passed the “despair” stage of miles 18-22 and had slogged into the “exhaustion and elation” stage where the finish line is either literally or figuratively in sight. As we turned a corner, we rolled up onto a group of visitors being led about by a marketing director. The group looked to be about a half dozen members of the same family, one alert, early-elderly fellow in a wheelchair and his fully ambulatory wife, accompanied by adult children and spouses. When the saleswoman spied us, I could see it all in a flash in her eyes: my Dad’s very popular with residents and staff, known for witty banter and good cheer, and she’d spied an opportunity to make a little innocent use of him as a living endorsement of the facility’s beneficial practices and judicious selection of clientele. “Well, here’s Bill!” she gushed. “People tell me you’re about to be one hundred! How marvelous!” “One hundred?” crowed one visitor. “Wow!” Then two women from the group rushed over to pat his shoulder; one kissed him on the forehead. The other bent down into his face and declared, “One hundred! Mercy! What a wonderful, wonderful blessing!” He looked right at them and said, “Please somebody just give me a pistol so I can shoot myself.” Read the full text https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/0c7ff798-0591-465a-ae78-062580edc0a7/Screen+Shot+2022-01-12+at+4.02.23+PM.png Essays - PUMPING IRON Don’t spread it around, but I love to iron. Every Sunday evening when the 60 Minutes clock starts ticking, I haul my folding board out of the hall closet, mantle it upright about five paces from my television set, get out a week's worth of shirts, trousers, and jeans (ironing jeans is an old cowboy tradition), and press the bejesus out of everything while Ed, Morley, Harry, and Mike yammer away ; about problems far more serious than wrinkled fabric, and far less easily remedied. Talk's the cheap coin of information there, so it takes only an occasional glance from the board to the screen—say, when I'm flipping a sleeve—to keep up with what's going on. I'm not the only man who irons: I know a Pulitzered photographer who braved the fire in El Salvador (credentials for machismo seem necessary here), and he gets fifty cents for every blouse of his girlfriend's he irons. (He works too cheap.) One academic dean of my acquaintance does the smoothing, as it once was called, for his wife and son. Three cases may not constitute-a trend, but it's obvious that the distaff half of the global population has forsaken this old, joyous craft. Like so much of our work done by hand, it has fallen into disfavor. It's linked with domestic slavery; of all the household chores once designated as women's work, ironing seems to have been the most odious, so it now carries the most trenchant political overtones. You don't ask a woman to iron a garment for you (even if you've found one who knows how) any more than you might request that she greet you at the door in a rip-off French maid's costume, a martini in hand and your slippers in her teeth. Read the full text https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/cd1669ab-5837-43de-8ed7-eb04b576da6f/train+hitch2.jpeg Essays - FAUX HAUBEAUX We all loved being poor. My college pals and I drank Gallo’s Paisano wine, $2 per gallon jug. We drank the cheapest brand of beer, Grand Prize, though our mentor, an English instructor, made his own which we drank as if it were the tastiest mead from blessed bee honey and none of us could admit it tasted like a skunk’s bath water. We relished our martyred indignation when we saw rich kids tooling about campus in cars their parents had bought them, when we passed the best restaurant on the square and saw them coming and going. We believed our deprivation was a sign of moral superiority. We stewed in our righteousness. We detested “fat cats,” Wall Street BigWigs, corporate tools and fools, General Motors, yachts, private golf clubs, banks and bankers, sororities and fraternities, cheerleaders and the jocks they cheered on, “fine” wines and those who cared about them, any event requiring a tuxedo and a ball gown, evangelical television preachers, “fascists” of all stripes, the Ku Klux Klan, the House Un-American Activities Committee, most all things Southern (except, of course, Delta blues), the FBI, society orchestras (Lester Lanin, Guy Lombardo), fancy food dishes with foreign names, the industrial-military complex, make-up on females and hairstyles requiring professional maintenance, all advertising, the business diploma and those who pursued it, the novels of Ayn Rand and Jacqueline Susann and their fans – and probably a thousand other items, now long since forgotten, all composing a nexus, a gestalt, about money, about chasing after it and using it to yield power over poor people such as ourselves. Read the full text https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/292276d3-6422-4f48-a84e-13078a375dd0/Helen+Billy+Smith+%401945.jpg Essays - A Mother’s Day Meditation Some big old lunky boy sits on the side­lines in helmet and pads looking pretty glum about the score, but when the camera zooms in on him, he looks up, grins, and what are those words he's mouthing? Kill 'em? Remember the Alamo? Coke adds life? Of course not. He's saying, "Hi, Mom!" Every man is al­ways a sonny boy to his dear old mudder, but before we wax too dewy-eyed over this eternal mater­nal bond, We should remember that fa­miliarity breeds, if not contempt, at least a loving skepti­cism and unerring knowledge: Nobody truly knows a moth­er as does her child. So when my writing students whine that they don't know any­thing to write about, I pull out my "My Mother Never" exercise and simply assign them to finish that phrase. This does inspire kindly thoughts of mom, but the depictions of her are always tainted with a leathery tang of the actual, proving the eye of the child, no matter how loving, is nev­er clouded. Here, for instance, a son describes his mother's struggles over cooking: "She once told us that she would rather scrub the johns in a filling station than pre­pare a dinner for five. Last year, she was go­ing to start a new tradition of preparing Christmas dinner. Of course, she burned it — that was sad, since the only preparation need­ed was for her to warm an already cooked ham we got from a neighbor. If it weren't for restaurants, my sister and I would have starved to death." Read the full text https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/a089eb60-723a-4909-8801-cde32a5107d0/angry+face.jpeg Essays - Look Back In Anger I could call the cops, beg them to shoot Larry, but they probably wouldn't. Larry lives right across the al­ley; I think of him as a George Romero movie prop because I have killed him so many times, and yet he lives. And barks. His bark­ing just ripped me out of a cozy dream for the second night in a row, and now I lie trembling, teeth and fists clenched. I am furious. Last week I tried to do something about it. Larry's only a dog, so I called his owner. He said, "Hey, he's a dog, he's gonna bark. You gotta expect that. It keeps the burglars away." He was wrong; Larry the Labrador's barking does not signify anything useful. He cries, "Wolf! Wolf. Wolf!" I've stood in my yard at noon, my work interrupted, and watched this animal yowl at passing cloud forma­tions. Squirrels blink a block away and it drives him ber­serk. If he's taken inside to be hushed up, invariably he will be let out at 5:00 a.m., at which time he will scream, "Hey! Anybody else up yet?" image USC Santa Barbara Current Read the full text https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/a49e63c9-01c0-4572-aa4d-77bf46a4dec7/Corpus001.jpeg Essays - My Dad and Donald Trump My Dad was also a womanizer. Except he just wasn’t very good at it. He was more of a “one-womanizer.” He fell in love with my mother in high school, where she was the Class Poet and he was the Class President. One summer before they were married they were separated because he was working in the hills of Tennessee tramping from one farm to another selling Bible concordances. He wrote letters harassing her. . I love you, I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. Do you love me? This isn’t a bit clever. I’m tired: “My head aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk or emptied some dull opiate to the brain” Keats – Ode to a Nightingale. Cost Uncle Charles $126 for me to learn that, so why not use it? Please, please, don’t let anything in the world change your plans about coming home Sun. I’d much rather be talking to you now than writing. First, I’d tell you how crazy you are. Then I’d tell you how glad I am. Then my shy, boyish way how much I care. Too bad that he was stuck with this one woman, who stayed married to him until she died at age 87 after they’d been wed for 63 years. Sad. Loser. Read full text https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/b5122927-759f-448c-b83d-409473ac4958/Garcons-de-cafe-35-2.jpeg Essays - Muddling Along in French Among the problems American-born WASPs face is that sooner or later they are required to speak a language they were never required to learn. Growing up in a cattle town in New Mexico in the 1950s, the closest I ever came to a foreign tongue was when I ordered enchiladas in our town's sole Mexican restaurant and when I watched Pepe le Pew cartoons. To my innocent way of thinking, courses in Latin, French or Span­ish were about as necessary to my curriculum as homemaking or art. Naturally, at the time I never dreamed that one day I'd be sitting in a cafe across from the Louvre trying to tell a sly French waiter why I could not possibly have ordered the washtub of beer he and another waiter lugged out to my table and planted under my nose. I never knew then I'd have such a trenchantly vivid suspicion that I was being snickered at, or that I'd be wishing I hadn't believed studying foreign lan­guages was silly "because you never use them." What I didn't know then was that foreigners use their foreign languages about 99 percent of the time, and if you're wandering among them, it's very helpful to be able to avoid saying, "Please see to it that I walk away from here with ice cream on my head" when you actually mean, "Give me a roast beef sandwich on whole wheat, light on the mayo." Read the full text https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/look-back-in-anger daily 0.75 2022-01-14 https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/thin-men daily 0.75 2022-01-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/a8871ca9-9b55-4d44-9132-2539099a8f7e/TMOH+cover.png Thin Men of Haddam - The Story Orphaned as a child and reared by an Anglo family, Raphael Mendez lives in a nether world, neither de la raza nor Anglo. Having dropped out of graduate school after a squabble with his fellowship sponsors, he is foreman of the ranch of his childhood. Paired against Mendez in this striking first novel is his cousin, Manuelo - practically illiterate, broke, the father of six starving children, and unable to find work. When Manuelo's desperation pushes him to the other side of the law, Mendez must choose sides. https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/country-music daily 0.75 2022-01-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/c7bac451-7176-4460-821d-ad59602b2c39/COVR+CMUSIC.png Country Music - The Story Country Music opens when Bobby Joe Gilbert, Hedorville's Bane to Virgins and Most Unlikely to Succeed, confronts an unwelcome question: "What are you going to do with yourself?" He is desperate to escape the chains thrown around him by his reputation, by his self-image, and by the limitations of his world. But the bonds are strong. A brief college career dissipates in endless games of pinball and a stormy friendship with Polly, a Lesbian pinball addict who resists his sexual advances and penetrates his psychic defenses. He takes a wife, a gorgeous blonde who epitomizes his macho notions of womanhood - values he is afraid to question - but the marriage is doomed by her willful childishness and his inability to cope with the intricacies of love and sharing. Warily, he returns to Hedorville, to Heavy and Lonnie and Rabbit, to Jackie Gayle and Nelda Sue, the old crowd that cannot see beyond their stifling universe of drive-in restaurants and beer and pinball - and also to his responsibility for the death of a girl who trusted him, the ugly secret in his past which he will have to face before he can turn to the future. Bobby Joe, an explosive mixture of innocence and hostility who nevertheless commands our sympathy, is a remarkably drawn character, one of the many who give Country Music its extraordinary vitality. The women in his life - Pinball Polly, his wife Ginger, and Nelda Sue, the girl he keeps leaving and keeps coming back to - are three of the most deftly created women in recent fiction. Together they and a host of others bring a world to life, while its creator rings changes on the themes of sex, destiny, escape, and the complexity and passion of human entanglements." https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/gabriels-eye daily 0.75 2022-01-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/fc888f06-620d-4957-bfd7-cb5e22c0eca9/wholeStout1GE.JPG Gabriel's Eye This intelligent new novel by well known author C.W. Smith examines the process by which a decent and well- meaning young woman makes a moral error with tragic consequences. Twenty-six year old Susan is the kind of teacher every student falls for, in one way or another. She's beautiful, kind, sympathetic - a pal. And she teaches art, where her creative approach and candor have endeared her to all. Her personal life is something else, however, as her biological clock ticks on and boyfriend Curt shows no signs of wanting marriage, and even less of wanting kids. When seventeen-year-old transfer student, Jeff Robbins walks into her art club meeting one night, Susan is transfixed by his good looks, palpable shyness and obvious admiration. The story that results displays C.W. Smith's exceptional sense of detail in the service of character as he reveals every nuance of their developing relationship and the mistakes that propel it. As he has demonstrated in his previous fiction, Smith profoundly understands the pressures at work as adolescent males attempt to comprehend themselves and the world. Never has he created a more sympathetic young man than Jeff, deeply infatuated, forced by circumstance into a nurturing role at home, disturbingly at risk from the intensity of his emotions. What may be more surprising, however, is Smith's stunning ability to inhabit the skin of Susan, a young woman whose lack of a moral compass combined with good intentions sets off a chain of events whose conclusion even she cannot foresee. Beautifully written, with Smith's usual sharp ear for the fine points of colloquial usage, Gabriel's Eye is a compelling read that will deeply reward every reader with an appetite for thoughtful, moving fiction. https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/letters-from-the-horse-latitudes daily 0.75 2022-01-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/7ec1bc7c-9b10-475f-a547-73834ade95d3/cover+lhl.png Letters From The Horse Latitudes - The Story In the 'horse latitudes' of the Gulf of Mexico, that zone where long periods of high pressure keep the winds away, becalmed sailors sometimes tossed the horse overboard to conserve water. In these unapologetically traditional and realistic stories, characters find themselves in circumstances which demand similar difficult and undesirable acts. Because the stories are set in the Southwest and Mexico, from about 1920 through 1990, they often hinge on the suspicions, antagonism and ignorance the region's different cultures, races, and classes bear against each other. https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/one-hundred daily 0.75 2022-01-12 https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/faux-haubeaux daily 0.75 2022-01-12 https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/muddling-in-french daily 0.75 2022-01-13 https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/girl-flees-circus daily 0.75 2023-06-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/2b3718f5-7cb4-4c4b-992c-6fe1e8663337/Gold+medal+seal+IPPY.jpeg Girl Flees Circus - Make it stand out Gold Medal Independent Publishers Awards IPPY https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1c9513c6-4756-44da-9bda-fae735a0587c/Bronze+Medallion+GFC.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/a5516c17-f75a-46c0-b618-ea0afc3e2c78/Girl+Flees+Circus+cover.jpg Girl Flees Circus C.W. Smith’s new novel Girl Flees Circus will inaugurate the Lynn and Lynda Miller Southwest Fiction Series on September 1, 2022. Published by the University of New Mexico Press, the novel opens late in the Roaring '20s, when 19-year-old aviatrix Katie Burke appears out of the blue, crash-landing on the only street of sleepy No Name, New Mexico. Her biplane is upended, and soon, so are the lives of the people she encounters: a handsome young mechanic who lives in a teepee; an 'old maid' schoolteacher who longs for Katie's friendship (and perhaps more); a daringly interracial couple who own the town's diner; a World War I veteran rocked by PTSD; and a bigoted sheriff who has suspicions about the plane -- and the pilot. As her story unfolds, Katie's mysteries deepen, revealing shocking secrets, a scandalous past, and a future in true peril. Girl Flees Circus takes flight the moment Katie crashes to earth, promising a journey into the lives of a glamorous, redheaded stranger and the people she may change forever. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/e7772588-ba25-4aa2-bfc3-f56a9903b757/Smith+on+bike.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/6352af67-5306-4766-9cca-e9f63602e16c/D+mag+profile+frnt+pg.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/5b533353-3bf2-490c-a803-b3141aff5b78/ABQ+Shelflife+CW+interview.jpeg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/948f67fe-1cc0-4622-999a-640e1ab9be22/Review+New+Mexico+Mag+copy.png https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/steplings daily 0.75 2022-02-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/d3331b93-b55a-4a38-98ee-d14584a760ca/epub-step.jpeg Steplings It's 2003 with the country embroiled in a war in Iraq. Nineteen-year-old Jason Sanborn feels lost. He dropped out of high school just two months shy of graduation, and now his former classmates are off to college, the military, or minimum-wage jobs. The only pressing date on his calendar is an upcoming appearance in court on an assault charge, and when his over-achieving, beloved girlfriend, Lisa, departs for UT Austin to study premed, Jason can hardly abide his hometown of Mesquite. When his mother died two years back, his father Burl, fifteen years sober, fell off the wagon briefly, but he has since met a new wife, Lily, in AA. Lily brings a daughter into the house: Emily, an eleven-year-old know-it-all whose existence irritates Jason. Three days before Jason's court date, he gets a "we can still be friends" letter from Lisa. Heartbroken and determined to convince Lisa of his worth, Jason decides to hitchhike to Austin. Since Emily also hates the new family circle, she is desperate to rejoin her father, a UT professor, so she demands to accompany Jason on his mission. When Burl and Lily find their children missing, Lily puts out an Amber Alert for Emily, accusing Jason of abducting her daughter. The frantic search that ensues threatens to destroy the tentative household that Burl and Lily have just begun to establish, and the end of the journey brings surprises for both the children and their parents. https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/pumping-iron daily 0.75 2022-01-12 https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/about-cw-smith daily 0.75 2023-09-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/d966ef4a-27db-4060-a660-9bf89b7a1e0a/CW+Smith_photo_by_Holly_Smith.jpg About June 2022 Dallas Tx Photo by Holly Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1641142091187-IA33P49JLJJG40NYDM34/animas%2Briver.jpg About On the Animas River Trail in Durango, Co https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1641150850848-GRXFNKI6O0J25D2HIJD1/audience%2Bshot.jpg About Reading of Steplngs SMU DeGolyer Library (photo courtesy SMU) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/8c39863a-71cb-4800-8982-220d6b85fc5b/bike+animas.jpeg About Animas River Trail Durango https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/b4ea73e3-e7da-4f89-8a6c-2314f41fe7d5/charlie+at+paisano.jpeg About At Paisano https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/97c6447c-d597-44c6-aa7b-594d36f7335d/bike+big+dam.jpeg About Riding the Arkansas River Trail in LIttle Rock https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1641150953080-TGP120QMFC7IZ4KPWZKD/CW%2Baward%2BTIL.jpg About TIL annual banquet, Dallas, receiving the TIL's Lon Tinkle Award for LIfetime Achievement https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/fed3c7c1-9830-4666-babd-edb226542dd4/bike+boise.jpeg About Marcia riding in Colorado Springs CO https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/7052bdfe-1294-4ca5-a7a8-8badad5b73d9/cw+signs+at+degolyer2.jpeg About https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/0570e0af-e93b-4eb5-985f-2a3921aeab94/bike+mo+river.jpeg About Riding along the Missouri River outside Great Falls, Montana https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/51b735ba-914a-4670-9197-6aee37381c00/CW+Smith+Paisano+1975.jpeg About At Paisano 1975 during my residency https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/6ce9472e-ff32-4330-8b40-61b2af3b4d4c/bike+great+falls.jpeg About Along the Missouri River Trail Great Falls https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/dd104a38-c653-4c52-b7e9-93cde7fca675/CW+speech+TIL3.jpeg About Reading my acceptance speech of the Tinkle Award https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/8b4dd685-d77f-49b0-92b0-0f306ac61657/bike+wood+river.jpeg About https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1641151061756-SA4OT1JB3ZD43KUM5P7T/CWS%2Band%2BCecilia%2B%25281%2529.jpg About With Cecilia Balli during her residence at Paisano https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1641142225552-6R90GM1119VW38WYRWXG/bike%2Bwood%2Briver2.jpg About Lovely trail along the Wood River outside Ketchum/Sun Valley Idado https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1641151172375-NN1OPXVBYGULFUO8HX4O/CWSmith%2Band%2BSarah%2BBird%2B%25282%2529.jpg About With Sarah Bird at Paisano https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/634b2564-9945-4d5b-9f8b-c1a0ce1c7fc4/bike+questa.jpeg About View at Wild Rivers, Quest NM https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/260b7f47-3039-4224-829d-c4f52e25dab5/CWSmith+Ann+Matlock+Michael+Adams2.jpeg About Paisano, with Ann Matlock and Dobie-Paisano Director Michael Adams https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/d33b5aaf-d64b-4373-a7d5-d8f4c9671727/bike+conn+mass.jpeg About Farmington River Trail https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/4157762b-599d-495d-bff7-746dee2b9ec7/CWSmith2.jpeg About https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/9d3e7b14-ed5f-49ad-8a38-878c43020af1/farmingtoh+river.jpeg About Another favorite - the Farmington River Trail near Collinsville Conn https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/98096213-4cb2-4948-9573-c1903a7fcbb7/IMG_0044.jpeg About Reading from Steplings at DeGolyer LIbrary (courtesy SMU) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1641142352155-X5JMAK2XBSEBB72X6Q3F/marcia%2Bwild%2Brivers.jpg About Marcia at Wild Rivers above the Rio Grande Gorge https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/3193c530-4bf3-49c1-9441-9f9ffcf842ee/IMG_0085.jpeg About https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/ca894d33-cf1e-4edd-8e6b-164e91331438/pair+at+wild+rivers.jpeg About At our favorite place - Wild Rivers Recreation Area Questa NM https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/391323a3-b188-4b72-a86f-2da06a2f6dc0/IMG_0171.jpeg About Just me with Maya, Sunny, and Mia https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/9babe524-8c81-42c1-ab81-b7c60696f32a/sheep+questa.jpeg About Caught this fellow standing along the trail at Wild Rivers https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1258621d-86d5-444c-8996-9f8a219205a0/kirby+kristin+nina+dennis.jpeg About Nina Schwartz at the Steplings reading https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/c71745a6-c12e-4793-aba1-587cc6f6150f/white+rock+crk.jpeg About A home favorite - the White Rock Creek Trail https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/3409124c-608f-4453-817f-d129bbbcfc2e/Marcia+and+Charlie+TIL.jpeg About https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/9e7f1d17-bea2-447c-8a15-268c4d0e814d/wild+rivers4.jpeg About At Wild Rivers https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/f4617f57-f3ef-456b-a57a-9eb63d7db276/Paisano+log.jpeg About https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/bc433759-e1fa-42e3-a2b9-6bfd0665a208/queta+church+and+snow+peak.jpeg About Church near Questa and Wild Rivers Recreation Area https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/bc304af4-dd98-441a-8500-adc0bf8487d9/Jan+Reid+CW+Smith.jpeg About CW with Jan Reid https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/cbaa37b2-da7c-40c2-8bb0-58f5cd8e2192/Reading+The+Twig.jpeg About Reading at The Twig bookstore, San Antonio https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/315ef813-65b6-435f-b344-94da29257fed/IMG_0356.JPG About Marcia on the Greenbelt trail near Denton https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1641151418220-PQAY71C3H63ADN139BU2/TIL%2B1986%2Bcouncil%2Bat%2Bpaisano%2B%25283%2529.jpg About Meeting of the TIL council at Paisano, early 80d. l yo r: Steve Harrigan, Elmer Kelton, John Graves, AC Greene Eddie Weems, Kaye Northcott, Beverly Lowry, CW Smith, Marshall Terry, Bill Wittlif, Laura Furman https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/adec6609-2169-4ed3-a63f-0f303a79fc85/IMG_0942.JPG About On the Farmington River Trail in Conn https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/0411e2d3-4a6a-4276-9a87-5a279f8946b6/patty+turner.jpeg About At Steplings reading. (courtesy SMU) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/fb5432e1-8c44-48ba-a56c-d80470cf446e/IMG_0943.JPG About Along the Farmington River Trail https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1bb2867d-6ef8-4838-992a-0b0ce08b4466/DFQTR.jpeg About Living room at Paisano https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/4b093cb7-3137-4a56-9b53-74f7957fb7d8/Alfredo+Corchado+and+Norma+Cantu.JPG About Alfredo Corchado and Norma Cantu TIL meet McAllen and The Wall https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/aea85fb3-b9ac-4718-a474-6d3f2b732f32/At+the+Wall.JPG About Gathering at the border wall to protest https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/04a3ad58-f28c-4cf5-8450-164dd416c946/Ben+Fountain.JPG About Ben Fountain, TIL meet McAllen https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/01079c2f-345d-459d-b11e-d1f1f6dd7cc8/Entering+Mass.JPG About https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/3aef3d66-66cf-404e-a9a2-5d5a8f59d55c/Bill+Broyles.JPG About Bill Broyles, TIL meet McAllen https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/0e674741-89e7-4230-87b0-5d23e412763f/Marcia+w+Dave+Acree.JPG About Marcia with Dave Acree Animas River Trail Durango CO https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1f7a77f6-b443-4fc6-a7b0-dd1a30681d4a/tempImagecDn5U7.png About Bob Flynn at the TIL's "Wall" poetry reading https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/4dfeed96-8e43-4a98-bf15-d59b17d6c9b5/CW+bike+at+Joppa.jpeg About Joppa Preserve Trail Jan 2022 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/30c8ad36-289a-4d80-a456-446b7e0a43ff/Valentine+ride+2022.jpeg About Valentine Ride 2022 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/87eb869b-f791-4091-aee2-74722613da41/CW+Smith+Carmen+Tafolla+and+Betty+Sue+Flowers.JPG About CW Smith, Carmen Tafolla, Betty Sue Flowers, TIL meet McAllen https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/69075ccd-22ca-4d6b-8bad-f8ee84af45ad/Darwin+Payne.JPG About Darwin Payne TIL meet McAllen https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/f4422387-6b7e-449a-976b-92a990a67095/Esto%21.JPG About Resistance fighter https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/24f06b91-0b0c-483b-bce0-3a5075d37b26/Fran+Kiernan+Laura+Furman+Paisano.jpeg About New Yorker editor Fran Kiernan and Laura Furman Paisano https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/743234d5-38c4-49df-8113-bca7174b79b8/Kip+Stratton+%26+Sergio+Troncoso.jpg About Kip Stratton, Sergio Troncoso, TIL meet https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/4a7bfa78-4b1d-4ea6-9f8e-be8f0a3a4867/Laura+Furman+CW+Smith+Elaine+Markson+Paisano+75.jpeg About Laura Furman,, CW Smith, and agent Elaine Markson, Paisano https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1fa70172-cb63-4434-9163-d37ceb4de2bc/Laura+Furman+Paisano.jpeg About Laura Furman, Paisano https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/12c6e337-621b-4264-ae30-344dbf45587e/Naomi+Shihab+Nye+reading+poem.PNG About Naomi Shihab Nye reading at the Wall TIL meeting at McAllen https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/151c6673-1f15-4dfe-846c-edb05382d179/No+To+The+Wall.JPG About https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/c0aa5f9d-ef2b-4fcb-bf3e-b74c8cf650ee/Sergio+Troncoso+SueEllen+and+Steve+Harrigan+Mark+Busby+CW+Smith.jpg About TIL meet at McAllen. Sergio Troncodo, Sue Ellen and Steve Harrigan, Mark Busby, CW Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/ff13853d-d735-4291-82d3-9081d421df8d/Steve+Davis+%26+Naomi+Shihab+Nye+%26+Sergio+Troncoso.jpg About Steve Davis, Naomi Nye, Sergio Troncoso, TIL meet at McAllen https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/2538b858-2f1e-42ff-a09f-4de54b9eceb9/Steve+Harrigan.JPG About Steve Harrigan, TIL meet Mcallen https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/70c9fffa-7f5e-4905-bb32-311243155710/Tree+sign.JPG About The poetry reading was held under the shade of this ancient tree near the border at McAllen https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/8059752e-f321-497f-abb1-cb04a686c030/Elaine+Markson+Agent+44+Greewich+AVE+NYNY.jpeg About Agent Elaine Markson in her Greenwich Village office late 1970s https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/bcf20d88-4fb3-47c2-a86d-1e397f82117c/CW+Smith+at+the+Dobie-Paisano+Ranch+1975.jpeg About At the Dobie-Paisano Ranch 1975 during my Fellowship there https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1663256776646-Y9IB3MDR4ONTLV781YYZ/cw%2Bsawmill%2Bofc%2Bft%2Bburg.jpg About 1983 Fort Burgwin/Taos Writing on Buffalo Nickel using an IBM Selectric II! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1663256936705-J0I28ZVOUPL071Q4BFEZ/GFC%2Blaunch%2BDeep%2BVellum%2B4.jpg About Launch of Girl Flees Circus Sept 14th at Deep Vellum Books in Dallas https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/276936dc-2d91-4846-bcd8-558f58458594/GFC+launch+Deep+Vellum+6.JPEG About Launch of Girl Flees Circus Sept 14 2022 at Deep Vellum Books in Dallas https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1663257047301-QKR8R9LJTVGBCW8K6C5M/GFC%2Blaunch%2BDeep%2BVellum1.jpg About Launch of Girl Flees Circus Sept 14 2022 at Deep Vellum Books in Dallas https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/3db6d4f8-8774-4a68-bd66-88bfacab8809/GRC+launch+Deep+Vellum3.JPG About Deep Vellum Books Dallas https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/ba6337dd-0ca4-4305-9a1f-4a769329dcb9/tempImage7VOtat.png About Reading at Interabang Books Dallas Oct 5 22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/b0e34a70-0dda-4c76-bff3-dd8cd504bb9c/tempImageYNFsBq.png About Reading Interabang Books w/Ben Fountain https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1665090730762-IHX7AS6JFT4NWG6VXF7C/tempImage4JqxmU.jpg About At Interabang Books Oct 5 22 w/Sean Mitchell https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/cdbf4e70-638f-4238-93c0-35a2176d8721/Interabang+pic3.JPEG About Reading Interabang Books Oct 5 22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/d47187b9-21af-46ee-a22c-b19e1645a061/Twig+w+Steve+Davis.jpeg About At The Twig bbokstore in San Antonio Oct 13th, with Steve Davis. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/cdb59892-2443-4b50-8a79-0d671701d697/Brazos+event1.jpeg About At Houston's Brazos Bookstore Oct 15, 2022 with Babette Hale https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1666014419219-M89WRMHK6G6OHXJ5X8N2/tempImagemlY3Af.jpg About At Brazos with family: Mansi Patel, Brad Bangen, Marcia Smith, Holly Smith, Kiran and Chloe Patel Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/c4bae8fa-56aa-4d58-98dd-b269a697ea3b/tempImageA3UrSo.png About Dale Campbell book club Mon Feb 13 2023 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/ae1879d2-9487-41af-9958-7be0a9da0896/tempImaget25VDV.png About With daughter Holly at SMU"s celebration of my 50 years of publishing fiction https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/87da1d69-b7cb-45dc-9cf3-3a515f844c61/tempImagewgx2vb.png About With Marcia at the 50th bash https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/d6b6e6ac-c6cf-49dd-a91f-bb1712e454b0/tempImageAro3Fq.png About Gnoshing at the 50th https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/9a1186a1-3bdf-41f1-97ef-5d7aed97b90b/tempImagerrJUzw.png About In the DeGolyer Library's Texana Room at the 50th bash https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/a82371d0-8c05-4db2-bb86-47c83f98fa67/tempImage354itf.png About At the 50th bash Aug 24 2023 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/53b33af8-c6a3-4e3b-9b81-cfd1f57ce4ac/tempImagerHR3Ir.png About Exhibits of work at the DeGolyer https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/de67733c-11a4-4713-89dd-5e3d87ca7daf/tempImage1KTLBk.png About Explanation card for exhibits at the DeGolyer https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/0243f571-b444-492a-a98a-afd4d3ce6c95/tempImageNVOPyx.png About More exhibits https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/4ccf10b8-21f4-49b1-890e-b3a855a58ded/tempImage3xP11O.png About https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/bd0abfe7-fce7-4876-a9ce-219115062ee3/tempImageTRvnUu.png About MOre exhibits - very old, I'm thinking, since these are my handwritten notes for novels https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/b3e3f745-40ed-4310-ae80-65fa254cb573/tempImageamBeNv.png About https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/1694097267832-MMLNBP4C319JSDLI759R/tempImageFpiwzD.jpg About https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/d5e846c0-f15a-4e76-a4c7-b38ece4a9014/tempImageVhXqMp.png About Presenting at the 50th bash https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/hunters-trap daily 0.75 2022-01-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/d12f8e90-aad6-4944-bf29-357d698f2915/Hunters+Trap+cover.png Hunter's Trap - The Story On the night of the vernal equinox in 1930, the novel's protagonist, Wilbur Smythe, puts in motion his plan to avenge the deaths of his wife and his employer, a wealthy Kiowa, both murdered by a banker greedy for the Kiowa's oil money. Smythe intends to kidnap the banker's seventeen-year-old daughter, Sissy, and hold her hostage to torment her father before killing him. Hunter's Trap further explores the clash of values and cultures that formed the core of Smith's earlier novel based on historical events, Buffalo Nickel. In this new novel, he has written a blend of early twentieth-century "western" with Greek tragedy and has given the tension-filled story a sophisticated gloss of 1930s determinism and pre-Christian paganism, so that the horrific outcome of Smythe's plan to use the daughter of his nemesis has a fateful inevitability and a gruesome but implacable logic. Set largely in El Paso and its Mexican neighbor, Juarez, the story weaves together the strong political and social undercurrents of the Depression. Beneath its texture of place and time, however, the story reasserts the age-old wisdom of how thin the margin is between good and evil in members of the human 'family.' Hunter's Trap is stylish and suspenseful, and it both partakes of and transcends the genres that inspired it. It is a literary page-turner that repays its readers from the first page to the last. https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/understanding-women daily 0.75 2022-01-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/3fc1c8b3-1baf-48b0-9177-f07593917fac/BRLA_seal_4.png Understanding Women - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/33f2582b-8382-40ec-ac13-3252b52598d4/Jones+Award+medallion.png Understanding Women - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/8475b14a-cacb-4ca0-9549-4795ce629eaa/epub-uw.jpeg Understanding Women - The Story It’s 1956, and James Robert (Jimbo) Proctor’s just turned sixteen when his uncle Waylan and his new wife Vicky invite him to spend a summer toiling in the New Mexico oil patch. Jimbo dreams that heaving heavy metal about will serve as well as a Charles Atlas course to make a man of him, but he lands smack dab into a domestic fracus that has his uncle living in his machine shop and sneaking out with Sharon, his secretary. Meanwhile, Jimbo’s aunt Vicky leads a protest against a fundamentalist book-ban and rails against American H-bomb tests on Bikini. James sets out to solve the case of what he calls The Hardy Boy and the Mystery of the Marital Estrangement, but when he meets Sharon’s cousin, Trudy, and plummets into love himself, the mystery of what brings men and women together or keeps them apart only deepens into confusion and torment. And James has more to learn than why we love and how we earn a mate both deserved and deserving. He’s coming of age in a pivotal year in an era of repression and transition: the Brown decision, hardly two years old, meets die-hard resistance among segregationists; Rosa Parks has just refused to take a back seat; playwright Arthur Miller marries Marilyn Monroe and gets a contempt citation from the House Un-American Activities Committee; Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver lose in a landslide to Ike and Dick Nixon; Ed Sullivan claims he’ll never let Elvis "the Pelvis" on his TV show, and a Southern Senator warns Americans against the insidious influence of "foreign" films. In Jimbo’s hometown of Dallas right-wing complaints of "Red" artists succeed in censoring a traveling art show sponsored by the United States Information Agency; civil defense drills sweep the nation to prepare Americans for nuclear war; sponsor General Electric withdraws an episode of the wildly popular drama "Medic" because it reveals too much about a Cesarean section, and abortions are so forbidden even descriptions of them are stricken from books. How such things -- things he might’ve thought remote and irrelevant -- come to bear heavily on his green life is the thrust of his summer’s true education, and he leaves on the cusp not so much of manhood but of adult responsibility. https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/family-histories daily 0.75 2022-01-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/9a7a68a9-e847-4534-a829-effc7e315323/Screen+Shot+2022-01-01+at+1.08.01+PM.png Family Histories - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/5724451a-075f-4dd3-bdf7-1dcdb9654a67/cover+SmithLeftwich.png Family Histories - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/a9fad657-7c10-42fb-a31c-d927a3e53103/Volume+1+Cover.jpg Family Histories This volume contains my personal essays about my own history. Click cover for full text https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/86941c73-2620-4618-80aa-2935bf23c945/Volume+2+Cover.jpg Family Histories Contains biographies of the ancestors on my father's side. Click photo for full text https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/6c4f9065-33b9-4fa3-a03c-7f6e746e5b55/Volume+3+cover.jpg Family Histories Contains biographies of the ancestors on my mother's side. Click cover for full text https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/69b73b50-7eac-4351-a767-117eaf3141eb/Volume+4+cover.jpg Family Histories Contains legal documents of various kinds. Click cover for full text https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/mothers-day daily 0.75 2022-01-13 https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/the-vestal-virgin-room daily 0.75 2022-01-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/ac2d03f3-a413-48da-a496-be2421ce4f82/VVR+cover.jpeg The Vestal Virgin Room - The Story The Vestal Virgin Room is an ebullient tragicomic novel that explores the hopes and fears of two small-time entertainers in pursuit of the American dream. For years Don and Dottie have been eking out a living with their piano, drum, and vocal act in mediocre night clubs and Holiday Inns; all over the Midwest. Now they're on the road again, but this time with a difference. This time, at the end of their tour, they'll be playing Las Vegas - only one night, only the lounge, only the intermissions, and not in a first-rate hotel. But it's a break, and secretly they're both got a lot riding on it. In the car, and in the confinement of their hotel rooms, the tension between them begins to mount. Don's brashness grows more pronounced as he tries to hide his nervousness. Dottie, who knows how much he wants this chance, cannot express her own ambivalence. Gradually, as we hear first one point of view, then the other, all their conflicting ambitions, as well as their mutual tragedy, are brought to the surface, threatening to destroy the love that has sustained them so long. Juxtaposing the outrageously comic scenes of Don and Dottie's public performances with the intense soul-searching of their private moments, C.W., Smith has created a brilliantly balanced novel fraught with laughter and tears https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/work-habit daily 0.75 2022-01-12 https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/news-events daily 0.75 2023-09-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec321c2af33de48734cc929/1607694644871-IC85FNH781UNZSZEGHDR/Aro+Ha_0428.jpg News & Events https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/whiterocklakeweeklyprofilenew-page-1 daily 0.75 2022-08-18 https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/dmagazineprofilecwsmith daily 0.75 2022-08-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/b4e3c608-160c-4f52-be8d-6fbf901d276a/D+mag+profile+frnt+pg.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/b709b600-580d-43f5-9d6b-560cc9142dda/D+mag+profile+pg2.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/bafd320d-1d40-4801-bfd5-25282303651e/D+mag+profile+lstpg.jpg https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/the-museum-of-marriage daily 0.75 2023-10-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61cb8e8bfe40d366688383fa/b8c34e0e-0efe-456f-8397-9b14dfbb88e7/Museum+of+Marriage+cover.jpg https://www.cwsmiththeauthor.com/museumofmarriagestory daily 0.75 2023-06-14