Letters From the Horse Latitudes

When Letters From the Horse Latitudes, C.W. Smith’s first collection of short fiction, appeared in print, they were praised in The New York Times for their “rugged informality” and for a “sense of intimacy… so great that the reader feels he has uncovered a cache of personal letters or is overhearing a late-night conversation between friends.” Set in the American Southwest and in Mexico, the central motif of the “horse latitudes” – a huge, perpetually becalmed area of the Atlantic dreaded and feared by old-time sailors – becomes a metaphor for living with uncertainty and moral ambiguity. The protagonists in this “collection of gems” (Austin American-Statesman) encounter the conflicts of race, class, and gender as their time and place presents to them, and they struggle to find answers to the conundrums of love, marriage, divorce, and death. Reviewing the collection in Texas Monthly, Robert Draper wrote “Vivid and emotionally honest, these stories are a joy to read.” Campbell Geeslin noted in The Houston Post that "These stories are a nourishing combination of lively entertainment and abrupt, effective insights into the way we are today."

When Letters From the Horse Latitudes, C.W. Smith’s first collection of short fiction, appeared in print, they were praised in The New York Times for their “rugged informality” and for a “sense of intimacy… so great that the reader feels he has uncovered a cache of personal letters or is overhearing a late-night conversation between friends.” Set in the American Southwest and in Mexico, the central motif of the “horse latitudes” – a huge, perpetually becalmed area of the Atlantic dreaded and feared by old-time sailors – becomes a metaphor for living with uncertainty and moral ambiguity. The protagonists in this “collection of gems” (Austin American-Statesman) encounter the conflicts of race, class, and gender as their time and place presents to them, and they struggle to find answers to the conundrums of love, marriage, divorce, and death. Reviewing the collection in Texas Monthly, Robert Draper wrote “Vivid and emotionally honest, these stories are a joy to read.” Campbell Geeslin noted in The Houston Post that "These stories are a nourishing combination of lively entertainment and abrupt, effective insights into the way we are today."

C.W. Smith is the author of nine novels, a collection of short stories, and the memoir Uncle Dad. Aside from a long career in teaching, he has worked as a musician, a newspaper reporter, an oil field roustabout, a paper delivery boy, frame carpenter, and roofer. When he's not teaching and writing and reading, he likes to be in his kayak or on his bike accompanied by his wife, Marcia. He has twice received the Jesse H. Jones Novel Award from the Texas Institute of Letters; the Southwestern Library Association Award for Best Novel; the Dobie-Paisano Creative Writing Fellowship from the University of Texas; National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships in 1976 and 1990; the Texas Headliner's Feature Story award; the Frank O'Connor Memorial Short Story Award from Quartet magazine; the John H. McGinnis Short Story Award from Southwest Review; a Pushcart Prize Nomination from Southwest Review; Special Merit Award for Feature Writing from the Penney-Missouri Foundation; the Stanley Walker Award for Journalism from the Texas Institute of Letters, an SMU Research-Travel Grant, and an award for Best Nonfiction Book by a Texan in 1987 from the Southwestern Booksellers Association, and an award for Outstanding Book of the Southwest from the Border Regional Library Association. The Texas Institute of Letters named him a Lon Tinkle Fellow for "sustained excellence in a career," and gave him the Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story of 2009. He belongs to PEN, The Authors Guild, Writer's Guild of America West, and the Texas Institute of Letters. The author may be contacted through his Facebook page or his website: https://www.facebook.com/CWSmiththeauthor http://cwsmiththeauthor.com