SARAH SMITH's long and highly linked bio

Sarah Smith has written the modern standalone Chasing Shakespeares, about the Shakespeare authorship controversy, and three historical mysteries, The Vanished Child, The Knowledge of Water, and A Citizen of the Country. The Vanished Child and The Knowledge of Water were named New York Times Notable Books of the Year. They have been published in twelve languages and in the UK, and have reached bestseller status here and abroad. Chasing Shakespeares has been made into a play, and The Vanished Child has been optioned for film.

She studied film and literature in London as a Fulbright scholar and in Paris on a Harvard fellowship, and has also held an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities. A graduate of Harvard University, where she received her B.A. and Ph.D. in English literature, she taught at Tufts for several years before falling in love with computers.

She'd been telling stories since she was five years old and living in Japan, and writing every day for pleasure since 11, but Mitch Kapor's program Agenda, the Cambridge Speculative Fiction Workshop, and Mark Bernstein of Eastgate Systems changed her life and got her writing for other people. It's still something of a surprise to her when someone she doesn't know has read one of her books.

She has written three hypertextual novels (novels meant to be read on the computer or the Web) and, with other members of the CSFW, is a coauthor of Future Boston, a science fiction novel about Boston's "history" for the next hundred years. Her poems and stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies, and her translation of Léa Silhol's "Emblemata" will appear in Interfictions, edited by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss, available from Small Beer Press in spring 2007. She is a member of the East Coast All-Stars writing group, with Delia Sherman, Ellen Kushner, Holly Black, Kelly Link, and Cassandra Claire.

She has taught writing at Hofstra University Summer Writers' Program; the Brown University Learning Community; Book Passage, Corte Madera (with Katherine Neville); Stonecoast Writers' Workshop (with Dennis Lehane); and Grub Street Writers' Workshop (with Hallie Ephron).

She has been a judge of several literary awards, including the Edgars and the Philip K. Dick Award. Currently she is a judge of the Camille Cosby Award.

She is a board member of the Shakespeare Fellowship, a former board member of the Interstitial Arts Foundation, and a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Contracts Committee; she has served as president and webmaster of the New England chapter of Sisters in Crime and was the founding webmaster of the Mystery Writers of America.

She is the author of two academic books and 10 articles, one based on Christina Rossetti's copy of Dante's Divine Comedy, which she found at a book sale. God is a librarian...

She is profiled in Contemporary Authors, International Authors and Writers Who's Who, Who's Who in the World, and Who's Who in America. In 1997 the College Club of Boston named her one of its Notable Women of the Year, and in 2002 the Newton Library named her one of its Author Honorees of the Year.

She lives near Boston, Massachusetts, with her family, but alas, there are no current cats. There's a dog instead.

Gracie would have disapproved of the dog. We miss you, Gracie pie.

She loves Shakespeare.