Clint Smith (writer)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Clinton Smith III
Clint Smith - 2019 (48915241016) (cropped).jpg
Smith in 2019
Born (1988-08-25) August 25, 1988 (age 33)
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
Alma materDavidson College (BA)
Harvard University (PhD)
Known forPoetry, writing, activism
Websitewww.clintsmithiii.com

Clinton Smith III (born August 25, 1988) is an American writer, poet and scholar. He is the author of Counting Descent, a 2017 poetry collection that was a finalist for the NAACP Image Awards and won Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.

Smith received a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.[1] He was a regular contributor to the Pod Save the People podcast, where he discussed the week's news with a panel of other activists.[2]

His latest book, How the Word Is Passed, topped The New York Times Best Seller list in June 2021.

Early life[]

Smith grew up Catholic in New Orleans, where he went to Benjamin Franklin High School for his first three years of high school and later attended the Awty International School in Houston, Texas for his senior year because he and his family fled New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina.[3][4] He attended Davidson College, graduating in 2010 with a B.A. in English.[5][6]

Career[]

He taught high school English in Prince George's County, Maryland before beginning doctoral work at the Harvard Graduate School of Education with a concentration in Culture, Institutions, and Society. His dissertation focused on race, mass incarceration and education.[7]

He was part of the winning team at the 2014 National Poetry Slam[8] and was a 2017 recipient of the Jerome J. Shestack Prize from The American Poetry Review.[9] He published his first book of poetry, Counting Descent, in 2016.[10] It won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association[11] and was a finalist for the NAACP Image Awards.[12] He was on the 2018 Forbes 30 Under 30 list[13] and Ebony's 2017 Power 100 list.[14]

Smith has also been a contributor to The New Yorker magazine.[15] His work is included in the anthology The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race (2016), edited by Jesmyn Ward.[16] Little, Brown published Smith's second book, , on June 1, 2021.[17] It was selected for the New York Times Book Review's "10 Best Books of 2021" list.[18]

He is a staff writer at The Atlantic.[19] Since 2021, he is the host of Crash Course's Black American History series.[20]

A fan of the Arsenal F.C. football (soccer) club and a former college soccer player, Smith has written several New Yorker essays on the sport.[21][22]

Personal life[]

Smith resides in Maryland with his wife and two children.[1]

References[]

  1. ^ a b "About Clint Smith". clintsmithiii.com. Retrieved June 11, 2021.
  2. ^ "Pod Save the People". crooked.com. 2017. Retrieved August 10, 2018.
  3. ^ Smith, Clint (March 1, 2016). "Donald Trump, David Duke, and the Soccer Fields of Louisiana". The New Yorker. Retrieved March 29, 2018.
  4. ^ "Clint Smith Reflects On This Moment". NPR.org. Retrieved May 12, 2021.
  5. ^ "The New Yorker: Clint Smith '10 on Trump, Duke and Disavowal". www.davidson.edu. Davidson College. March 2, 2016. Archived from the original on December 20, 2016. Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  6. ^ Clint, Smith (May 13, 2020). ""What if They Open That Door One Day?" What Education Means to People Sentenced to Juvenile Life Without Parole". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  7. ^ Alford, Natasha S. (October 3, 2016). "#GrioAuthorsCircle: Clint Smith reads excerpt from new book 'Counting Descent'". The Grio. Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  8. ^ Dingfelder, Sadie (August 15, 2014). "D.C.'s Beltway Poetry Slam triumphs at the National Poetry Slam". Washington Post. Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  9. ^ "Shestack Prizes Awarded to Clint Smith & Marie Howe". August 31, 2017.
  10. ^ "Through Poetry And TED Talks, Clint Smith Probes Racism In America". WBUR. November 28, 2016. Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  11. ^ "BCALA Announces the 2017 Literary Awards Winners". January 21, 2017.
  12. ^ "NAACP Image Award Nominations Announced". NAACP. December 13, 2016.
  13. ^ "30 Under 30 2018: Media". Forbes.
  14. ^ "The EBONY Power 100 2017". Ebony.
  15. ^ Wile, Rob (May 18, 2016). "This Historian Explains How America Became Resegregated, in 11 Tweets". Fusion. Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  16. ^ "The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race". www.simonandschuster.com. 2016. Retrieved March 29, 2018.
  17. ^ "How the Word Is Passed". October 9, 2020 – via www.littlebrown.com.
  18. ^ "The 10 Best Books of 2021". The New York Times. November 30, 2021. Retrieved December 18, 2021.
  19. ^ "Clint Smith Joining The Atlantic as a Staff Writer". The Atlantic. July 27, 2020.
  20. ^ Crash Course Black American History Preview, retrieved April 30, 2021
  21. ^ Smith, Clint (March 12, 2018). "The Agony of Being an Arsenal Fan". The New Yorker.
  22. ^ "2009 Men's Soccer Roster". Davidson College Athletics.
Retrieved from ""