second novel, Something in the Wind, which garnered generally favorable reviews. Her next novel was Fancy Strut (1973). In 1974 Smith and her family moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where she finished Black Mountain Breakdown (1981), a much darker work than her readers had come to expect. Next she turned her attention to short stories, for which she won O. Henry Awards in 1978 and 1980. Smith published her first collection of short stories Cakewalk in 1981. It was also about this time that her marriage broke up, and she accepted a teaching job at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, where she taught for many years. In 1983 her fifth novel, Oral History, became a Book-of-the-Month Club featured selection, exposing Smith for the first time to a wide national audience. In 1985 she published Family Linen. That same year Smith - who was by then divorced from Seay - married journalist Hal Crowther, to whom she dedicated the new book. Since then, Smith has published Fair and Tender Ladies (1988) and Me and My Baby View the Eclipse (1990), her second book of short stories. In 1992 she published The Devil's Dream, a generational saga about a family of country musicians. In 1995 her ninth novel, Saving Grace, was published, and in 1996 the novella The Christmas Letters, her eleventh work of fiction, was published. News of the Spirit, a collection of stories and novellas, was published in 1997, and she published New York Times Bestseller The Last Girls in 2002. On Agate Hill (2006), is set in the piedmont South during Reconstruction. The New York Times found the young narrator's voice to be occasionally unconvincing, but praised "Smith's inventive storytelling". Guests on Earth (2013) is based on the life of Zelda Fitzgerald. It is narrated by Evalina Toussaint, a former piano prodigy living in a mental hospital where she meets Zelda. The Washington Post called it "a carefully researched, utterly charming novel". In April 2020, Smith published Blue Marlin, a novella that follows Jenny, an adventurous thirteen-year-old, down to Key West for a patched-up family vacation following the discovery of her father’s illicit affair. The book was published by Blair. Smith currently lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina with husband Hal Crowther. Bibliography Novels The Last Day the Dogbushes Bloomed (1968) Something in the Wind (1971) Fancy Strut (1973) Black Mountain Breakdown (1980) Oral History (1983) Family Linen