Vassar W. Smith grew up in the Deep South, graduating with distinction in Classics from Rhodes College, then attended Stanford University as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, where he received his Master’s Degree and Ph. D. in Russian. His translation of Fedor Sologub’s book, Bad Dreams (Ardis, 1978), received critical acclaim in The New York Times Review of Books. He has been an active participant in the Waverley Writers (Palo Alto, CA) and its monthly anthology Fresh Hot Bread, a member of the Poetry Society of Tennessee, and an award-winning contributor to its anthology Tennessee Voices.