Acclaimed Author Shares Writing Tips with StudentsFebruary 21, 2017 (Jackson, Miss.) - The Belhaven English Department has invited novelist Michael Farris Smith to the University for a reading of his latest book, Rivers and Desperation Road, on March 2, 4:15 p.m. This reading is free and open to the public and will be held in the Student Center Theatre. Smith will be answering questions as well as speaking with students on a variety of topics about writing.

Smith is the award-winning author of Rivers and The Hands of Strangers. Rivers was named in numerous Best Books of the Year lists, and garnered the 2014 Mississippi Author Award for fiction.

His short fiction has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and his essays have appeared on The New York Times, Catfish Alley, Writer's Bone, and more.

Two novels are forthcoming, Desperation Road (Feb 2017) and The Fighter (2018) with Lee Boudreaux Books, a specialty fiction imprint with Little, Brown. He lives in Columbus, Mississippi, with his wife and daughters.