Dustin Beall Smith’s work has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, the Atlanta Journal/Constitution, BackStage, The Gettysburg Review, Hotel Amerika, the Louisville Review, the New York Times Magazine, Quarto, River Teeth, The Sun, Writing on the Edge, and elsewhere.

His honors include the Katharine Bakeless Nason Prize in Nonfiction for his book, Key Grip. A Memoir of Endless Consequences; fellowships in 1995 and 1996 at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts; and first-place Labor Press Council Awards for 1982, 1983, and 1984.

In the late fifties and early sixties, Smith helped pioneer sport parachuting in the United States. He later worked as an advance man for Robert Kennedy’s senatorial campaign and for the Norman Mailer–Jimmy Breslin mayoral campaign. He worked as a key grip in the film industry for twenty-seven years, leaving movie-making to pursue an MFA in creative writing at Columbia University. He currently teaches writing at Gettysburg College, where he is also coordinator of the Peer Learning Center.