Meet The Author—Larry Smith
Larry Smith, a native Midwesterner, born and raised in a working-class family in the industrial Ohio River Valley, talks about his books Mingo Junction and Mingo Town & Memories.
He is the author of eight books of poetry, two books of memoirs, five books of fiction, two literary biographies of authors Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Kenneth Patchen, and two books of translations from the Chinese with co-translator Mei Hui Huang. His photo history of his hometown Mingo Junction appeared in the Images of America Series. Two of his film scripts on authors James Wright and Kenneth Patchen have been made into films with Tom Koba and shown on PBS.
In 1965 he graduated from Muskingum College in Ohio and at 21 married a hometown girl, Ann Zaben. He worked in the steel mills that summer and they soon moved to Euclid, Ohio where he taught high school English and Ann began working as a nurse. He earned degrees at Kent State University (M.A. and Ph.D), and was there when the riots and shootings of students occurred. In 1970-1971 he and Ann and their daughter Laura moved to Huron, Ohio where he began teaching at Firelands College of Bowling Green State University. Son Brian (1970) and daughter Suzanne (1975) were born in Huron. In 1980-1981 as a Fulbright lecturer in American Literature, he and his family lived in Sicily.
