Chris A. Smith is an award-winning San Francisco journalist, fiction writer, and poet. He has reported from Middle Eastern war zones and American protests, profiled big-city mayors and squatter punks, and produced deep dives into topics ranging from political messaging to asteroid strikes to African acid rock.
He has a BA in English from UNC-Chapel Hill; an MJ in Journalism from UC Berkeley; and an MFA in fiction writing from the University of San Francisco.
For a decade he taught a variety of politics and nonfiction writing courses at the Art Institute of California-San Francisco and San Francisco State University’s OLLI program. Most recently he taught creative writing at the University of San Francisco.
Once upon a time, he was a documentary photographer (samples here), and a member of the English photo agency Exile Images.
At work on two books: one, with co-author William Nessen, is a history of the American anti-apartheid divestment movement: Divest Now! The Fight Against Apartheid at America’s Most Radical University (UC Press). The other, The End of Mourning, is a supernatural eco-thriller. An excerpt was shortlisted for Uncharted magazine’s Novel Excerpt Prize.
A surfer and cat person, he also plays guitar in the psychedelic doom project Mystery Cult and is a cofounder of the Speck of Dust vinyl podcast.
Get in touch: chrisasmith415 [at] gmail [dot] com