Award-winning author, poet to give reading at La Sierra

Smith draws the connection between writing and music in an interview with The Brown Book Shelf: United in Story, an organization dedicated to furthering awareness of African American writers for young readers. The Los Angeles-based author has won many awards for novels written as poems, including Coretta Scott King book awards, the Claudia Lewis Award for Poetry, and the Myra Cohn Livingston Award for Distinguished Work of Poetry.

On Mon., Oct. 26 Smith, an alumna of La Sierra University, will give a reading of her works and hold a question-and-answer session. The event will be held in La Sierra’s Matheson Hall at 6 p.m. 

Smith attended La Sierra from 1980 to 1983 and studied English, but did not graduate from the university. Her two novels titled “The Way a Door Closes” and its sequel, “Keeping the Night Watch,” and a book of poems called “Mother Poems” center on life-altering childhood losses, anger, heartache and ultimate healing.

“The Way a Door Closes” published in 2003 by Henry Holt and Co., and “Keeping the Night Watch” which was released in 2008 by the same publisher, tell in moving and simple prose the tale of young C.J. whose family life is full of warmth until his father walks out. Eloquent verses depict C.J.’s struggle to step up to the plate and hold the family together throughout his own hurt and healing. The poetic story picks up again with the second book, when a 13-year-old C.J. must come to terms with his deep anger and struggle with forgiveness when his father returns full of apologies.

“Mother Poems,” a book of poetry published in 2009, also by Henry Holt and Co. delves into the author’s deep and loving relationship with her mother, the heartbreak of her mother’s unexpected death when Smith was age 12, and the effort at restructuring her life. Smith supplies both poetry and torn-paper collage pictures for the work. “I wrote this because of the shock of waking up one morning and having her not be there,” said Smith in an interview with NPR.

“The Way a Door Closes,” Smith’s first book for young readers, won the 2004 Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe New Talent Award, and the book’s sequel, “Keeping the Night Watch,” is a 2009 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book recipient. Both books won the Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year award in 2004 and 2009, and received “School Library Journal” Best Book of the Year recognitions. Additional awards for “The Way a Door Closes” include the Claudia Lewis Award from Bank Street College, a Notable Children's Book in the Language Arts recognition, the Judy Lopez Memorial Award from the Women’s National Book Association, the Lee Bennett Hopkins Award Honor Book, and The Myra Cohn Livingston Award for Distinguished Work of Poetry.

In addition to her work as an author, Smith, a native of Akron, Ohio, has served as a professional storyteller, teacher, photographer, artist and singer. She has led ‘wordshops’ in which she encourages students to find their voice through paint chips, random words, found objects, and magazine pictures, and has sometimes taught bookmaking workshops.

Admission to the reading event is free. La Sierra University is located at 4500 Riverwalk Parkway, Riverside. A campus map is available at https://lasierra.edu/campus-map/.