Flagler English professor published in Years Best

Flagler College Professor of English Laura Lee Smith recently had one of her stories, “This Trembling Earth,” selected for publication according to an announcement received by local St. Augustine news reporters at Historic City News.

Smith’s story will appear in the prestigious anthology, “New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, 2010” as well as in the journal, “Natural Bridge.”

The story takes place in a small town near the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia. Coping with the arrival of a newborn colicky grandson and two older, dependent children, a family is immediately thrown into conflict and turmoil. The mother, who narrates the story, is faced with making an unsettling decision between helping her criminal son or doing what she knows is right. In the Editor’s Advertisements for the journal, “Natural Bridge, “This Trembling Earth” has been touted as “exploring the interplay of fate and parental influence.”

“New Stories from the South” is an annual compilation of unique short stories – written by southern writers or about the South – published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Since 1986, “New Stories from the South” has brought the best short fiction of the year to the attention of a national audience.

“It’s an enormous honor to be included in this anthology, alongside authors I’ve read and admired for so long,” Smith said. “I have to give props to the incredible community of writers I know and work with at Flagler College, and to the students who inspire me every day. Without Flagler’s support, I don’t think this would have happened.”

This year’s “New Stories from the South” will feature the work of nationally acclaimed fiction writers Dorothy Allison, Padgett Powell, Elizabeth Spenser, Wendell Berry, Rick Bass, George Singleton, Bret Anthony Johnston and Ann Pancake, among others. The anthology will be published in September.

Each year, a renowned writer is chosen as the guest-editor to make the selection for the next “New Stories from the South” anthology. The 2010 guest-editor is Amy Hempel. She is well known for her works in fiction and non-fiction. In 1985, she published her first story collection, “Reason to Live,” which won the Commonwealth Club of California Silver Medal. Hempel’s stories have appeared in “Vanity Fair,” “Harper’s,” “The Yale Review” and “The Quarterly.”

Flagler College Assistant Professor of English Liz Robbins said Amy Hempel, editor of ‘New Stories from the South, 2010,’ culled stories from hundreds of the country’s finest magazines to make selections from this anthology.

“The majority come from our most well-known authors, fiction writers who have already published multiple books,” Robbins said. “For Laura to be recognized at this point in her career means she has nowhere to go but up. We … are so fortunate to have her working with us.”

“Natural Bridge” is a literary journal that is published twice yearly at the University of Missouri – St. Louis. Selections for “Natural Bridge” are made by a prominent guest editor along with a staff of editorial assistants who are graduate students in the creative writing master’s (MFA) program. “Natural Bridge” is committed to “presenting the best in new writing from established as well as promising writers of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, including literature in translation.”

Smith’s fiction has appeared in “The Florida Review,” “Natural Bridge,” and other journals, is forthcoming in “Bayou,” and received the 2006 Snake Nation Press prize for short fiction. She is the co-author of a biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, “Natural Writer.” She teaches creative writing at Flagler College and works as an advertising copywriter.