Author’s sense of community runs deep

By Judy Babb

At 82, one would expect a person to start slowing down. C.W. Smith defies that expectation in every sense. He’s both mentally and physically a man of action.  

Smith — known to his friends as Charlie — is a man of many words, not only as the author of 13 books — his newest is a novel, “Girl Flees Circus.” He is also a man who helps others to work their way through immigration issues or with food needs. To better help, Smith takes Spanish and is involved in a conversational Spanish group every week.

Smith volunteers at the Wilkinson Food Pantry where four of five people who come there for help are Spanish speakers. He gets plenty of opportunities to hone his Spanish.

Smith continues to surprise one of his neighbors, 67-year-old Becca Crowell. Crowell is also a member of the Spanish conversation group. 

“He’s really fit,” she said. “I see him striding by my house every morning on his walk. It’s easy to forget his age.” 

His helping others extends to his neighbors. Crowell said he comes down to help her pull weeds and carries the big lawn bags to the curb on pick-up day. 

“He’s just a nice guy,” she said.

Crowell has autographed copies of all of his books, given to her by the author. She read the newest one even before its Aug. 12 debut. He impresses her with his writing as well.

“What I thought he did very well was the dialogue,” she said. “That was very good. It felt real,” Crowell said. “That’s hard to do.”

Had Smith not changed his major in college, he might be playing saxophone with a band or doing something else that isn’t his passion. But he decided he didn’t like being a music major at what was then North Texas State University, now University of North Texas, and changed to English with a history minor. 

He’s also a person of many experiences. Aside from a long career in teaching — he is the emeritus Dedman Family Distinguished Professor of English at SMU — he is a man of many experiences, having worked as a musician, a newspaper reporter, a swamper on a pipe truck, a roustabout, a paper delivery boy, oil field hand, frame carpenter and roofer. All of those experiences help create a plethora of story lines, letting his imagination take flights of fancy.

Writing, obviously, became his love and his career.

When at UNT, he wrote for the Denton Record Chronicle as what he called its “foreign correspondent.” He covered the small towns that ring Denton, compiling reports. He also wrote movie reviews. 

Smith has a love of literature and cites William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck as favorites. He particularly loves Steinbeck’s “Cannery Row” books.

He is Texan by birth, born in Corpus Christi, and a child of the Southwest, raised in Hobbs, N. Mex. That area is where his newest novel is set. The main character, 19-year-old Katie, crash lands her biplane into No Name, Ariz., where her arrival upends the sleepy town. Smith’s website describes twists and turns Katie’s arrival causes:

“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.”

Smith said the story for this latest book had been “rolling around in his head for 30 to 40 years.” His ideas for books come from a variety of places, depending on the book. Thematically they are varied as well. 

Smith’s first novel in 1975 was “Country Music,” which was called “a raw comic romp that offers up a shrewd anatomy of sexual and social stances” to 1984 “The Vestal Virgin Room” about small-time entertainers in Las Vegas and the consequences of their lives there to 1995 “Buffalo Nickel” about a Kiowa Native American drawn into the violent and greedy world of the white men. Most are based in the Southwest but that’s where the similarities stop.

He taught communications at Southwest Missouri for nine years and creative writing at Southern Methodist University, where he bypassed having to work for tenure because he was a published author. He retired from teaching at SMU in 2012. He also worked for The Dallas Times Herald for nine years.

Writing is only a part of Smith’s interests. He and wife Marcia live five minutes from White Rock Lake and consider themselves big lovers of the lake. They ride bikes there regularly. “We cherish the opportunity to ride there,” Smith said. “We see deer, coyotes, skunks and rabbits. We recently saw a Roseate Spoonbill.” The spoonbill was far from its normal home.

Smith will be doing two bookstore appearances. He’ll be in conversation with former The Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Blow from 6-8:30 p.m. at Deep Vellum Books Sept. 14 and will be at Interabang Books for a reading and signing Oct. 5 at 6 p.m.

Blow is looking forward to the conversation. He said of Smith: “He has a sense of community that runs deep. He’s neighborly to incredible lengths. He’s active in volunteering for humans and pets. 

“Dallas should be proud to call him a son of Texas.”