Annick Smith
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Annick Smith is an American writer and filmmaker born in Paris, France and raised in Chicago, Illinois. Her parents Stephen and Helene were both photographers of German decent. She wrote a collection of essays, an award winning book, many short stories, co-edited several well known anthologies. Her work has been personal as well as travel and nature related. She has produced, co-produced, and directed films. She has also taught and is a member of film and writing groups in Montana and Utah.
Smith attended Cornell University from 1954-55, University of Chicago from 1955-57, and University of Washington in Seattle. She married David James Smith, and they had four children, Eric, Stephen, Alex, and Andrew. She moved to Montana in 1964, however, she did not begin writing until 1974, the year her husband died. Smith currently resides in Bonner, Montana.
II. Literary Works
Her collection of essays Homestead was published in 1995. One of her major projects was co-editing the Montana anthology, The Last Best Place. It was published by the University of Washington Press. Another Montana anthology that she edited, Headwaters of writers on water and wilderness conservation was distributed free to promote conservation. She was awarded the Oklahoma Book Award for nonfiction and the Denver Public Library's Bancroft prize for western history for her book, Big Bluestream, Journey into the Tallgrass.
Smith has also won awards for her story, "It's Come to This". It won the National Magazine Award for Fiction in 1992. That same year it was included in Best American Short Stories . It was also anthologized in a number of collections including, Viking's Circle of Women, Norton's Best of the West, Craig Lesley's Dreamers and Desperadoes, and the Graywolf Annual. Another of her stories, "Virtue," was listed as one of the 100 Distinguished Stories in Best American Short Stories, 1995.
Some of her more personal essays and nature travel articles have appeared in a number of magazines including, Audubon, Modern Maturity, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times Traveler, National Geographic Traveler, Outside, and Travel and Leisure. They have also appeared in nature anthologies for Montana Land Reliance, and The Nature Conservancy.
III. Smith's Film Credits
Smith has several famous film credits including the co-production of "A River Runs Through it," which was directed by Robert Redford. Starring in this movie were Brad Pitt, Emily Lloyd, Brenda Plethyn, Craig Sheffer, and Tom Skervitt. It was about two brothers growing up under the strict rules of a minister father. While both boys rebel, one channels it into his writing while the other slips down a path of self -destruction.
Smith was also the executive producer of the award-winning western,"Heatland," starring Conchetta Ferrell, Rip Torn, Barry Primus, Lilia Skala, and Megan Folson. It is about a recent widow and her daughter travel to Wyoming in 1910 to be a housekeeper for a stern rancher. Once they arrive she decides to homestead a piece of land of her own, but the following year is full of hard winter. It was based on the real-life diary of Elinore Randall Stewart.
Other film credits of hers include being the associate producer of "Peacocks War," a grizzly bear feature for the PBS nature series. She also produced and directed "The Real People," a public television series about Native American life in the inland Northwest, as well as "Kicking the Loose Gravel Home," a film portrait of the Northwestern Montana poet, Richard Hugo.
Of the filmmaking and writing groups she is involved in, she is a founding member of the Sundance Film Institute in Utah. She was also the founder of The Hellgate writers group in Missoula, and directed its conferences on nature. She was creative director of the University of Montana's Yellow Bay Writers Workshop, and has taught in Port Townsend, at Centrum, Writers at work in Park City, and Art of the Wild in Squaw Valley. Her first novel is still in progress.
This essay was submitted by a student of Steve Gardiner, a teacher at Billings Senior High School in Billings, Montana.