Rob Smith received a B.A. from the University of Strathclyde, and an M.A. and PH.D in English from the University of Massachusetts. His book, The Seductions Of Emily Dickinson, was published by the University of Alabama Press in 1996 and received the Elizabeth Agee Prize and a Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award. In 2003, he co-edited with Ellen Weinauer the collection American Culture, Canons and The Case of Elizabeth Stoddard.  His essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Contemporary Literature, Narrative, Journal of Narrative Technique, Arizona Quarterly, American Transcendental Quarterly and ESQ. Smith has also published short fiction in numerous U.S. and European literary magazines, including Manchester Review, Gettysburg Review, New Ohio Review, Fugue, Barrelhouse, StoryQuarterly, The Warwick Review, Barcelona Review, Versal and Chapman, among many others. He received the Scotsman Orange Short Story Award in 2004. His story collection The Violence was published in fall 2015 with Queen’s Ferry Press. His novel, Cowan, winner of the Black Springs Crime Fiction Prize, is forthcoming in 2021-22. His teaching and research interests include nineteenth-century American literature, literary theory and film. Smith, who received the Philip Green Wright-Lombard College Prize for Distinguished Teaching in 2018, is the John and Elaine Fellowes Distinguished Professor of English.