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Witness

Witness

"Curt Smith writes with insight, accuracy and compassion, traits I deem essential to the essay form"

- Gary Percesepe, Mississippi Review

"A self-described Postmodern father, ever facing 'new rounds of answerless questions' navigates the deep waters of parenthood and discovers, at turns, a 'sputtering wellspring of bliss.' These beautifully written and thoughtfully argued perceptions of human relationships will seem both familiar and provocative for parents of young children (nowhere else will you find a more precise polemic on Goodnight Moon!)."

- Jennifer Bardi, The Humanist

"Curtis Smith's essays artfully combine poetic prose with keen insight. The result is a collection of personal essays that challenge the reader to re-examine life's moments, both big and small."

- Christine Weiser, author of Broad Street

"The essays collected in Witness brim with intelligence and beauty. Whether writing about a murdered student, the photographs of Diane Arbus, or a three-year-old pirate boy riding a tricycle naked through the house, Curtis Smith delves tenderly and thoughtfully into life's mysteries."

- Suzanne Kamata, author of Losing Kei

Available from Sunnyoutside Press

Truth or Something Like It

Truth or Something Like It

"In Truth or Something Like It, Curtis Smith taps the full range of experience--joy, grief, humor, despair--with a keen ear for the subtleties of language and a compassionate eye for the complexities of human nature. His prose is simultaneously robust and impressively precise. This is a surprising, generous writer, one who cares about his craft, and so will you."

- Elise Juska, author of One for Sorrow, Two for Joy

"Truth or Something Like It is a thoroughly engrossing novel--rich with unforgettable characters, vibrant prose, and strength of voice. Curtis Smith is a major talent, and this novel is a work to savor and celebrate."

- Laura van den Berg, author of What the World will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us

Available from Casperian Books

Bad Monkey

Bad Monkey

"With sensibility and wit, Curtis Smith renders a world of charm and chaos. Smith is a writer of substance and talent, and Bad Monkey is a jungle of delight."

- Kim Chinquee, author of Oh Baby

"Reading Curtis Smith's prose is like listening to a brilliant electric guitar solo: you not only hear the music, you fall into it head-first until it alters the beat of your heart, the rhythm of your breathing. Do yourself a favor and put Bad Monkey on your must-read list."

- John McNally, author of Ghosts of Chicago and The Book of Ralph

"These stories brim with the energy of crime fiction and the ambition of high literature. Each piece in this collection achieves sublimity: that ineffable moment when the unanticipatable become the inevitable. Wonderful alone and, in concert, magnificent."

- Pinckney Benedict, author of Town Smokes: Stories and Dogs of God

Available from:  AmazonPress 53

Sound + Noise

Sound + Noise

"Only occasionally do I read a novel where the characters remain like old friends long after the title and plot have faded away. Curtis Smith creates such characters. Jackie and Tom are burdened with the grief and fate of a superb fictional plot, and yet they are real, I felt as though I lived in their town and watched them long before their paths crossed. Combine this visceral reality with poetic descriptions and a good deal of humor, and you find Curtis Smith's novel, a heart-rending exploration of love and loss, residing somewhere between fiction and life."

- Lisa Carey, author of I Hear The Mermaids Singing

"In SOUND + NOISE, Curtis Smith identifies, examines, and prods the boundaries we create for ourselves, dramatizing complex human beings struggling against the confines of their pasts in order to create their lives anew. His prose is both exacting and evocative; his vision displays a mind willing to take on the moral ambiguities of our day. The result is a masterly portrait of the way we live now."

- Kirby Gann, author of Our Napoleon In Rags

Available from:  AmazonCasperian Books

The Species Crown

The Species Crown

"There are elements in these stories we recognize-the vacation story, the murder mystery, Godzilla, geometry-and their brilliance is how Curtis Smith takes these expectations and plays with and against them, twisting, pulling, bringing us along wherever he goes. There are surprises, plot twits, playful language and form, shifts in emotion that catch you off guard. Most importantly, Smith infuses these stories with humor. He surprises you with it; he alleyoops comedic setups, then grabs you and breaks your heart, leaving you wondering what just happened."

- Aaron Burch, Editor, Hobart

Available from:  AmazonPress 53

An Unadorned Life

An Unadorned Life

Carl Taylor thinks he's on the "wrong end of a year-long bender" until the week chronicled in An Unadorned Life, when he really hits bottom and learns what it means to look up again. Beneath a blizzard of tough breaks and nasty business, shouldering the sorry baggage of failed love and family history, the hero of Curtis Smith's first novel limps straight into our affections. Thanks to Smith's razor wit, unsparing honesty and non-stop verbal inventiveness, once Carl's soul is laid bare, it looks like something we both wholly recognize and have never seen quite this way before. An Unadorned Life is a boisterous, page-turning, heart-tugging debut by a fresh voice in American fiction.

- Ellen Lesser, author of The Shoplifter's Apprentice and The Blue Streak

Available from:  Amazon

In the Jukebox Light

In the Jukebox Light

Available from:  AmazonMarch Street Press

Placing Ourselves Among the Living

Placing Ourselves Among the Living

Available from:  AmazonMarch Street Press