Awards
She is also a 2008 National Book Award finalist, winner of the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award in Poetry, the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, the National Poetry Series award, the Patterson poetry award two Pushcart prizes, and the Rattle poetry prize. She also won the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for short story writing and had work selected to appear in both "Best American Poetry" and "Best American Essays." In 2006, she was inducted into the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent, and she was the recipient of both McDowell and Yadoo fellowships.
She won the Distinguished Writing Award for Commentary from the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE), 1997. However, the Boston Globe returned the ASNE award and withdrew her from consideration for a Pulitzer Prize after the newspaper acknowledged that some of her columns contained fabricated people, events and quotes. Smith admitted to four instances of fabrications in her columns. She was asked to resign from the Globe after this revelation.
She is married to Bruce DeSilva, journalist and Edgar Award-winning author.
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