Carolyn Smart

Carolyn Smart is a poet, editor, memoirist, and supporter of emerging writers.2 She is the author of six volumes of poetry and an award-winning memoir.6 For three decades, Smart taught Creative Writing at Queen's University, retiring at the end of the 2020-21 year to focus on her family and personal work.17

Smart founded the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers.345 She also served as the poetry editor for the MacLennan Series of McGill-Queen's University Press.4 Smart's legacy includes mentoring hundreds of writers, such as current Queen's Writer-in-Residence Omar El Akkad and Iain Reid, author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things and Foe.1

Smart, age 69, remains invested in her former students' writing journeys.1 She hopes Queen's creative writing program will eventually have its own department separate from English to allow more students to get involved.1