Ron Smith (Canadian author)

Smith was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. He studied English literature at the University of British Columbia and at the University of Leeds (M.A. in 1970), and returned to Vancouver Island in 1971 to teach in the English Department at Malaspina University-College (now Vancouver Island University) in Nanaimo, British Columbia,[1] where he taught English and creative writing for 28 years.[2] In 2019 he was designated Professor Emeritus by the Senate of VIU.

Smith was also awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of British Columbia in 2002. In 2004 he was invited to teach a semester in the North American Studies post-graduate programme at the University of Pescara, Italy, and the next year he was the inaugural Distinguished Fulbright Chair in Creative Writing at Arizona State University, 2005.[2]

In 1974 he founded the publishing company Oolichan Books. A successful grant application to the Canada Council in 1975 enabled the press to become an independent publisher. The operation was located in Smith's hometown of Lantzville, a small seaside village on Vancouver Island.[1] In 2011 he received the Gray Campbell Distinguished Service Award for his contribution to publishing in BC. Smith now lives with his wife, Patricia Smith, also a writer, In Nanoose Bay, BC. He sold the press after 36 years.

From 1988 to 1991 he was the fiction editor for Douglas & McIntyre. He has been called "instrumental" in helping to start the first aboriginal publishing house, Theytus Books, in 1981.[3]

He is the author of a suite of poems, Seasonal (1984), a long poem, A Buddha Named Baudelaire (1988), two other collections of poetry and a collection of fiction, What Men Know About Women (1999), an illustrated children's title Elf the Eagle (2007) which was short-listed for the BC Book Prizes and the Saskatchewan Young Readers Award, a biography, Kid Dynamite: The Gerry James Story (2011), and a memoir, The Defiant Mind: Living Inside a Stroke (2016), which was long-listed for the George Ryga award and won the Independent Publisher IPPY Gold Medal in the States for autobiography/memoir (2017). In 2018, an excerpt from The Defiant Mind was translated into sixteen languages and published by Reader's Digest in over twenty countries. In 2020 he co-authored and published a medical memoir with Dr. Bernard Binns entitled: Improbable Journeys: from Crossing the Himalayas on Horseback to a Career in Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

Smith also reviews books, and co-edited the anthology of Canadian West Coast short fiction: Rainshadow Stories from Vancouver Island (1982). He also edited Poetry Hotel: Selected Poems by Joe Rosenblatt (1985), the Collected Works of Ralph Gustafson, vol. 1 and 2 (1987) and New & Selected Poems by W. H. New (2015).

His poetry was translated by Ada Donati and published in a bilingual edition Ferrara, Italy, 2002. He also served on the Board of the B.C. Arts Council from 2008 to 2012.

• Address on receiving an honorary degree from the University of British Columbia
• Oolichan Books
• Ron Smith's Author Website