About the Author
Marilyn Brandt Smith blossomed among the blue bonnets and mesquites in south Texas. She was born with glaucoma, and became totally blind after an accident at school when she was thirteen.
Twelve great years at the Texas School for the Blind were followed by a teaching degree from the same teachers’ college attended by her parents, now known as Texas State University. When she was unable to obtain a teaching position because of her blindness, she changed vocational horses. After her teaching experience in the Peace Corps, she obtained a master’s degree in counseling psychology from Texas Tech University, far enough west in Texas to feel like the desert. She worked as an administrator, counselor, and teacher for blind adults in Washington, D.C. and in Utah before returning to work in Texas.
Marilyn was first published in a poetry anthology during her college years. Articles about her Peace Corps work led to other essays about disability. She edited composite reports about clients for rehabilitation centers and agencies. In hobby time, she chose informative pieces on technology and music for newsletters of clubs in which she was active. She assisted blind college students with research and copyediting.
Marriage to a Kentuckian eventually brought her to her present home in Louisville. An adopted daughter from Korea and a son born in Texas arrived five months apart. Between diapers and school buses, Marilyn assisted her husband at his piano store and vending facility while he finished his education degree.
She has always had a kitty cat for a pet, and learned to love her husband’s guide dogs. For ten years the family bred and sold boa constrictors. She loves singing harmony with the family, and favors groups in various musical genre, especially bluegrass and barbershop harmony. She cooks family favorites and hopes to compile a book featuring specialties she has contributed to cookbooks and “how-to” magazines.
Recent writing experience aside from “Chasing the Green Sun” has focused on flash fiction-those surprise endings stretch her creativity in new ways. She edited the first anthology for the Behind Our Eyes group of writers with disabilities, and edits their online magazine, Magnets and Ladders. A new anthology is forthcoming, and her team of editors is working on the next magazine issue. Check www.behindoureyes.org and www.magnetsandladders.org for current status and information about contributing if you are a disabled writer.