Patricia A. Smith

Patricia (Patty) Smith has been teaching American Literature and Creative Writing at the Appomattox Regional Governor’s School in Petersburg, VA since 2006. A native New Englander, she received her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her nonfiction has appeared in the anthologies Older Queer Voices; One Teacher in Ten: Gay and Lesbian Educators Tell Their Stories (Alyson Publications, 1994); Tied in Knots: Funny Stories from the Wedding Day (Seal Press, 2006); Something to Declare: Good Lesbian Travel Writing, (University of Wisconsin Press, 2009); One Teacher in Ten in the New Millennium: LGBT Teachers Discuss What Has Gotten Better…and What Hasn’t (Beacon Press, 2015); and in Nine Lives: A Life in Ten Anthology. Her essays and stories have appeared in such places as Hippocampus; Salon; the Master's Review; Parhelion Literary Magazine; Broad Street: A New Magazine of True Stories; Prime Number: A Distinctive Journal of Poetry and Prose, Gris-Gris, An Online Journal Of Literature, Culture, and the Arts; The Tusculum Review, and So to Speak: a journal of feminist language and literature. The Year of Needy Girls is her first novel.