Carmen Giménez Smith Biography

Carmen Giménez Smith (born February 20, 1971 in New York City) is an American poet, writer and editor.

Giménez Smith earned a Bachelor of Arts from San Jose State University and an Master of Fine Arts from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was a Teaching-Writing Fellow. She is currently an assistant professor in the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at New Mexico State University. She also teaches in Ashland University's Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing. Giménez Smith serves as publisher of Noemi Press and editor-in-chief of the literary journal Puerto del Sol, and she holds a seat on the editorial committee at VIDA: Women in Literary Arts. She is married to writer Evan Lavender-Smith.

In 2009, Giménez Smith was named to Poetry Society of America's biennial New American Poets Series. In 2011, she was named a Howard Foundation Fellow in Creative Nonfiction; her memoir, Bring Down the Little Birds, received an American Book Award; and her third collection of poems, Goodbye, Flicker, was awarded the Juniper Prize for Poetry.