Background

Michael Marshall Smith was born on May 3, 1965, in Knutsford, Cheshire, United Kingdom. His parents are academics. When he was around one year old, his family moved to the United States (firstly to Illinois, then to Florida), then to South America, Haiti, Mexico, South Africa and to Australia. In 1973 they moved back to the United Kingdom.

Education

Michael Marshall Smith was educated at Chigwell School, where he was in Swallows House. He then attended King’s College, where he studied philosophy, social and political science. There he became involved with the Cambridge Footlights, a comedy revue troupe that had produced a number of luminaries.

Career

After Cambridge, Michael Smith wrote and performed a comedy for BBC radio. To keep afloat when he first started writing, Smith worked at scripting corporate vacuum cleaner videos and organized a corporate video festival for a couple of years, before starting on the company's graphic design. This led to freelancing as a graphic designer, a career he continues today.

He made his writing debut in 1990 with the story The Man Who Drew Cats. Before the publication of his first novel-length work, Only Forward, in 1994, Smith had been writing science fiction and thriller short stories for some years. A few years later, he made news in the publishing industry when he signed a two-book, six-figure contract that resulted in the release of his 1997 work, Spares. The novel also generated interest in the film industry and has been optioned for more than six figures to the film company Dreamworks. Spares imagines a scenario in which wealthy individuals have themselves cloned in order to have a ready supply of spare body parts.

Smith's other novels include One of Us, Hannah Green and her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence, The Servants, The Straw Men, The Lonely Dead, Blood of Angels, The Intruders, Bad Things, Killer Move, We Are Here, The Anomaly and The Vaccinator. Additionally, Smith is a contributor of short stories to British and American anthologies, including Dark Voices 2, Best New Horror 2, Best New Horror 6, Darklands, Giant Book of Terror, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Seventh Annual Collection, and Dark Terrors. He is a contributor of stories to periodicals, including Omni, Peeping Tom, and Chills.

For two years from 2002, he co-wrote material for two series of surreal comedy Dare To Believe. On 1 September 2006, the horror short story Hell Hath Enlarged Herself was in development as a feature film by Cuba Productions and Lightworks Films. Smith is a producer and co-screenwriter on the film. In 2012 Smith established virtual Ememess Press to produce electronic versions of the short fiction.

He is currently developing film and television projects. His more recent book is The Possession.

Achievements

• Smith is a three-time winner of the British Fantasy Award. He also received August Derleth Award for Only Forward in 1995. In 2000, Smith earned the Philip K. Dick Award, for his novel Only Forward. He was also nominated for more than twenty awards.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Anomaly

    (If Indiana Jones lived in the X-Files era, he might bear ...)

    2018
  • The Straw Men

    (In this novel, Michael Marshall's unique voice adds a chi...)

    2001
  • Cat Stories

    (This mini-collection gathers Smith's cat-related tales, i...)

    2001
  • The Possession

    (The Possession is the second installment in The Anomaly F...)

    2019
  • Bad Things

    (Bad things have always happened in Black Ridge, Washingto...)

    2009
  • The Servants

    (A uniquely dark and elegant tale that illuminates the lon...)

    2007
  • Blood of Angels

    (A notorious serial killer the Upright Man has escaped fro...)

    2005
  • The Intruders

    (For ex-cop Jack Whalen, it all begins with a visit from a...)

    2007
  • Spares

    (Talking fridges, human clone farms, flying shopping malls...)

    1996
  • The Lonely Dead

    (A guilty man walks alone into the cold mountain forests o...)

    2004
  • Everything You Need

    (An aimless driver in the mountains comes upon something t...)

    2013
  • Only Forward

    (Stark is the private investigator who goes to work when S...)

    1994
  • The Vaccinator

    (After a chequered and violent career, Eddie Kruger now li...)

    1999
  • Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence

    (Hannah Green actually thinks her story is more mundane th...)

    2017
  • We Are Here

    (It should've been the greatest day in David's life. A tri...)

    2014
  • What You Make It

    (What You Make It is a short story collection. The first p...)

    1999

Views

Stephen King, Peter Straub, Ramsey Campbell, H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Jack Finney, Alfred Bester, Jim Thompson, James Lee Burke, and James Ellroy had an influence on him. Smith was also influenced by surrealist art and movies.

If he had time again, he'd try to be a cook. He loves food and is endlessly interested in recipes, weirdly enough.

Quotations: "I enjoy books and films from all genres because they all have very distinctive pleasures to offer. When I'm writing, therefore, I tend to find myself wandering through different territories, depending on the demands of the story I'm trying to tell."

"I personally think that the longevity and attraction of the vampire myth come down not to the biting and the blood and the swishy capes, but rather to the stories' underlying messages about what we feel about death, and also about our lives."

"The United States is different because I've spent a lot of time there since, and so there's more of a continuum. It's definitely the U.S. that has the deepest roots in my soul. I spent my childhood believing I was English, and would one day be going home. But when we came back to live here, I started to realize how much of me was bedded somewhere else. Whenever I walk out of an airport in the U.S. and smell the air, a bit of me feels it's coming home."

"I'm not a great believer in writing courses, though it must be said I've never been in one. It probably depends on what kind of writer you are. I'm very un-analytical about what I do. I don't plan much for the first draft. I try to let characters come out by themselves, rather than designing them. But other writers work differently, and for them, the teaching process - which at least forces you to consider what you're doing, and why - may be very helpful. At the very least a creative writing course mandates someone to spend a period of their life just writing, which can be hard to do otherwise. But beware of thinking too much about what you do."

"I'm not sure I'd want to pick the brain of any author. Some writers have a lot to say about what they write and why they write it. Others don't. I've met a lot of writers who have an awful lot to say in the bar, but whose books seem curiously empty."

Interests

• cats

Connections

Michael Smith is married to Paula Grainger. They have a son Nate.

Wife:

Paula Grainger

Paula Grainger is an English herbalist. She is the author of two books as well.

Son:

Nate Smith