Larry Smith is a native of the industrial Ohio River Valley having grown up in Mingo Junction, Ohio., the second of four children. His father was a brakeman on the railroad of Weirton Steel where the author worked two summers to help pay for college. A graduate of Mingo High School, Muskingum College, and Kent State University, he taught at Bowling Green State University’s Firelands College from 1970 to 2012. He is the author of eight previous books of poetry, two books of memoirs, five books of fiction, two literary biographies of authors Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Kenneth Patchen. Larry is the founder and director of The Firelands Writing Center and Bottom Dog Press with its Appalachian Writing Series. He is co-founder with his wife, Ann, of Converging Paths Meditation Center in Huron, Ohio. His most recent book is The Pears: Poems, from Bottom Dog Press.
