Jackson is a poetry and prose writer based in Missoula, Montana.

Born in Louisiana and raised in the bottoms of the White River in Southwestern Indiana, Smith is an author interested in the living histories and cultural folkways embedded in the landscapes that surround us.

While growing up beyond the outskirts of a farming and mining town of less than 500 people, he developed an understanding of his surroundings by way of his father and Cajun family friends, all of whom were extremely passionate hunters and anglers.

Much of Smith’s work grapples with the contemporary environmental, economic, cultural, and social implications of a regional colonial past. His writing is often in conversation with historical documents, piecing together the purposefully hidden human stories that lie within. The borders of oral and documented history are interrogated and/or blended together. The speaker’s own recollections, imaginings, and first-hand experiences unfurl alongside in overlapping locations. Mechanisms of storytelling and the act of remembering generate glimpses of a fly-over state’s small-town peculiarities and unmentioned narratives. 

Recipient of the Greta Wrolstad Travel Award, and second runner-up of Midway Journal's -1000 Below Contest, Smith is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, Poetry, at the University of Montana. His work appears in Making Waves: A West Michigan Review, The Quarter(ly), Wild Roof Journal, Write Place, Another Earth’s What Makes a Lake? Tracing Movement, and Third Room’s You are Here, Vol. 1: Labor.