Clint Smith

Clint Smith is the author of the poetry collection Counting Descent (2016) and a meta-historical travelogue novel How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America (2021). Counting Descent won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. Smith has received fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New America, the Emerson Collective, the Art For Justice Fund, Cave Canem, and the National Science Foundation. He earned his PhD in education from Harvard University and writes for The Atlantic. He lives in Maryland with his wife and their two children.