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Michael Farris Smith

Michael Farris Smith is a native Mississippian who has spent time living abroad in France and Switzerland. He has been awarded the Mississippi Arts Commission Literary Arts Fellowship, the Transatlantic Review Award for Fiction, the Alabama Arts Council Fellowship Award for Literature, and the Brick Streets Press Short Story Award. His short fiction has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and his essays have appeared with The New York Times, University Press of Mississippi, and more.

Genres: Mystery, Literary Fiction

New and upcoming books

May 2025

Lay Your Armor Down

Series

Rivers
Rivers (2013)
In the Beginning (2014)

Novels

   Desperation Road (2015)
   The Fighter (2018)
   Blackwood (2020)
   Nick (2021)
   Salvage This World (2023)
   Lay Your Armor Down (2025)

Novellas and Short Stories

The Hands of Strangers (2011)

Books containing stories by Michael Farris Smith

Trouble No More (2021)
Crime Fiction Inspired by Southern Rock and the Blues
edited by
Mark Westmoreland

Mississippi Noir (2016)
(Akashic Noir)
edited by
Tom Franklin

Story Behind the Book : Volume 4 (2015)
(Story Behind the Book, book 4)
edited by
Kristijan Meic and Ivana Steiner

Award nominations

2017 CWA Gold Dagger (shortlist) : Desperation Road

Michael Farris Smith recommends

Ozark Dogs (2023)
Eli Cranor
"Eli Cranor writes about his people and his place with a bloodred certainty and a careful eye toward the things that both bind us together and tear us apart. Ozark Dogs does not compromise one single beat."

A Mourning Song (2022)
(Dooley Brothers, book 2)
Mark Westmoreland
"A Mourning Song, where the fists swing wild and the shots go down smooth and the colors of the Southern landscape are dyed in shades of love, loss, and loyalty."

Oleander City (2022)
Matt Bondurant
"Oleander City is a surreal blend of the real and the imagined, where broken lives traverse the ravaged landscapes of hurt and loss. Matt Bondurant depicts characters who carry the great weight of tragedy, and he reminds us that where there is heavy burden, there is also the strength to bear it."

It Dies with You (2022)
Scott Blackburn
"Desperate people, in a hardworn landscape, with the smoke of emotional fires filling the Southern sky, that's what you'll get when you settle in with It Dies With You. Scott Blackburn pushes his characters to the extreme, while offering them grace and humility, the careful touch of a careful writer not afraid to go for the knockout."

Sugar Baby and Other Stories (2021)
River Jordan
"River Jordan writes with the lyricism and grace of a gospel hymn, and the tales that weave throughSugar Baby ring like the chorus of a choir, rising and falling and then rising again, like all good sinners do."

Graveyard Fields (2021)
(Graveyard Field Mystery, book 1)
Steven Tingle
"Steven Tingle possesses a smooth and lyrical cadence that will keep you rolling through the pages of Graveyard Fields like a pick-up joyriding across the North Carolina landscape. This is a gripping read, both energetic and thoughtful, and will carry you deep into the night."

Rovers (2021)
Richard Lange
"Rovers twists and turns like a whirlwind of desert dust. Richard Lange has created an energetic, entertaining, pulsing novel in Rovers, where things roam in the night and burn in the day and the path to salvation is a timeless, dangerous journey. A wild west, gothic thrill ride."

Before Familiar Woods (2020)
Ian Pisarcik
"Before Familiar Woods conveys its people and its landscape in striking ways—taking us through peaks and valleys, shadows and sunlight, beauty and brutality…A well-wrought delivery of emotion and place."

Bluebird, Bluebird (2017)
(Highway 59, book 1)
Attica Locke
"Attica Locke knows how to tell a tale, her voice so direct and crisp that the dust from the side of Highway 59 will settle on your hands as you hold Bluebird, Bluebird. Nothing comes easy in Shelby County, where the lines between right and wrong blur a little more with each heartfelt page, and love and pain live together as one under the big Texas sun."

The River of Kings (2017)
Taylor Brown
"Like a great body of water itself, The River of Kings is one moment grace and serenity, and the next moment hazard and threat, shifting in wonderfully unexpected ways, yet always in possession of a natural beauty you cannot help but admire."

Where All Light Tends to Go (2015)
David Joy
"David Joy writes under the auspices of community, heartbreak, and love, and makes use of the warmest color in fiction - gray. What is right and what is wrong and who is to decide? In the North Carolina mountains, these answers don't come easy. Big decisions come with big consequences, and if you second guess, you lose."

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