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Writing, the study of writing, and the teaching of writing, both as a reader and writer, is my life and I am a prolific writer with over 35 years publishing in regional newspapers, popular and trade magazines, trade journals, and have a very active life as a content creator for websites, blogs, and a wide variety of social media outlets including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
I founded and run my own small freelance writing business, Discipline & Publish, and an independent creative group and press, Faerie Treehouse Creative. I am involved in all aspects of these two endeavors and work on everything from writing copy for advertisements and product features to website design and monitoring and evaluating market trends.
As a freelance writer I have worked with diverse clients from individuals needing a remake of their resumes and cover letters to corporate clients such as The World Bank Group to streamline government grants and reports and prepare concise precis and briefs for the lay reader from scientific research and technical reports. I am the primary website administrator and content creator for several small businesses and have written blogs and posts across every major social media platform and design graphics and, if local, shoot and post photography for my clients. Much of my freelance work has been in technical, professional, and scientific writing, the majority of these assignments being either feature writing for trade magazines or the composition (or revision) of user-friendly reports for public institutions.
As a Professor of Writing and Literature for the City University of New York, I worked often with professionals in other disciplines and fields to write, administer, and evaluate grants and proposals of all types imaginable. The student population at LaGuardia Community College of the City University of New York is considered to be one of the most diverse in the world and I was required daily to communicate with them on a wide variety of levels and address myriad cultural, educational, and linguistic backgrounds.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Christopher Jason Smith, PhD
The Hand
The old man we called The Hand
Wrote on Everything in our town:
Top to bottom and inside and out,
He covered our walls with words.
He wrote with paints and pencils and pens,
Scribbled words with knives and sharp rocks and bone.
With his fingers dabbed daubed poetry
using mud and blood and juice and pie.
The Hand wrote poetry and prose on walls;
Shopping lists and bucket lists on doors;
History and predictions and fictions on chimneys;
Sonnets on monuments and drama on outhouse walls‒
Inside and out.
Thatch was rewoven in the dead of night
So words leaked wetly down onto bedroom floors.
He liked to paint curse words
On passing migrating birds.
He wrote "Suddenly, there's bears!"
Down the Midwife's stairs.
In time he wrote on our bodies as well:
He tattooed us from head to toe to tail.
Hide and seek is not a game our children play:
It is our daily life as graffitis of bodies
wander our graffiti streets.
The old man we called The Hand
Wrote his way into our lives
For uncounted years until he died.
We found his lettered body by smell
Leaning cold against the lettered well.
His lettered bones lie there still.
