Valerie A. Smith is the author of Back to Alabama, her debut poetry collection from Sundress Publications. She is the 2024 Solstice MFA Spotlight Poet, a 2022 Sewanee Writers' Conference Scholar and 2020 Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts Fellow. She earned a PhD in English from Georgia State University and MA from Kennesaw State University. Her poems appear in South Carlina Review, Radix, Aunt Chloe, Weber, Spectrum,  Obsidian, Crosswinds, Dogwood, Solstice, Oyster River Pages, and Wayne Literary Review. Above all, she values spending quality time with her family.