Preston Smith

Preston Smith (he/him) is a MA candidate in literature at Wright State University. He is an editor for Periwinkle Literary Journal, and his debut chapbook Red Rover, Red Lover released from Roaring Junior Press in early 2020. He can be found on Twitter (and Instagram!) @psm\_writes tweeting about his cats, baking, and fairy tales. His poems appear in Black Bough, Nightingale & Sparrow, and Pink Plastic House, among others.

## Early Life

Preston Scott Michael Smith was born in Dayton, OH, but lived in Bowling Green, KY, from the ages 5-15, and then moved back to Dayton at age 15.

## Goals

His biggest goal as a writer is to never stop exploring new things. Preston wants to explore new genres. He wants his writing to explore new topics, new sides of him, new lights and new darknesses.

> Of this, Preston said, "I have had a wild time finding myself, especially during undergrad and my grad school program, and these insights are always informing my work. I want to explore always but still stay true to myself."
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## Inspirations

Smith is inspired by so many people and so many things. When he was in undergrad, he had the opportunity to work with MFA candidates through an internship despite being a literature student (and therefore not being in the creative writing department). His internship boss, Abby Cloud, the EIC of Mid-American Review, changed his life when it comes to writing. Some of the then-MFA candidates that took him under their wing include Roseanna Recchia, Remi Recchia, Neeru Nagarajan, and Julie Webb. Outside of people,he is inspired by fairy tales and everything they have to offer. They are all different and allow for interesting play with narrative and form, and even though he has been publishing mostly poetry up until now, fairy tales have definitely affected his poetry.

> Preston noted, "I love taking my queer experience and combining it with elements of fairy tales and religion and anything that can make for a fun interpretation."
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## Philosophy

Preston's writing philosophy revolves around growth. He tries to be self-aware and understand that as a person and as a writer he is always growing—that there is always room for growth and that growth is extremely important, that we owe growth not only to ourselves but also to those around us. He believes there is no single way to write or revise, and that one must find what works best for them and not listen to every piece of writing advice they see because what works for one writer may not work for another. For him, writing always comes back to helping him better understand his experience and existence as a queer person, because writing is one place where queerness can be endlessly explored.

## Works

* Issue 2.2 of LandLocked Magazine
* Pink Plastic House
* Issue 7 of perhappened magazine
* The Anthology Pages Penned in Pandemic
* The Bi Babes issue of Pussy Magic
* Issue 5 of Royal Rose Magazine
* Issue 4.1 of Mineral Literary Magazine
* Issue 5 of Tilde
* The Distanced 2.0 project from Ang(st) Zine
* The Woman/Service/Voice project from Ice Floe Press
* Poetry chapbook: Red Rover, Red Lover, Roaring Junior Press in March 2020.

## Sources

* https://www.psmwrites.com
* Twitter.com/psmwrites
* Instagram.com/psmwrites