Emily Louise Smith

director of The Publishing Laboratory
Kenan 1105 | 910.962.7401 | smithel@uncw.edu

Background

MFA, UNCW, 2006
BA, Davidson College, 1999

Publications

Emily's poems appear in Best New Poets 2010, Columbia Poetry Review, Front Porch, New South, The Journal, Smartish Pace, the Southern Review, and Tar River Poetry, among others.

Awards

The Studios of Key West, 2013
Lecturer of the Year, 2011
Woman of Achievement in the Arts, 2011
Hambidge / NEA New Artist Initiative residency, 2011
Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, 2010
Best New Poets, 2010
Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, 2010
Writer-in-Residence, Hub City Writers Project, 2006–07
Byington Fellow, UNCW, 2005

Emily Louise Smith is director of the Publishing Laboratory and founder and publisher of Lookout Books and its sister magazine, Ecotone. She teaches Books & Publishing, Bookbuilding, and Publishing Practicum, among other courses, and manages the staff of graduate interns.

With a background in advertising and development, Emily began her publishing career as an assistant to former CEO of HarperCollins and Publishing Laboratory founder, Stanley Colbert. After earning her MFA in poetry, she went on to work as an editor, designer, and event coordinator for Hub City Press, and returned to UNCW to direct the department’s then six-year-old teaching press. She negotiated its distribution agreement, implemented the first overhaul and expansion of its popular textbook, Show & Tell: Writers on Writing, and in 2009 founded its award-winning literary imprint, Lookout Books.

News & Interviews

• Read an interview with Emily as part of Ploughshares' Innovators in Lit series.
• A Knockout Start For Lookout Books in Publishers Weekly
• Reflections on a Year of Pearlmania on Bill and Dave's