BIOGRAPHY
Angela Yuriko Smith is a third-generation Shimanchu-American and an award-winning poet, author, and publisher with 20+ years of experience as a professional writer in nonfiction.
A two-time Bram Stoker Awards® winner for excellence in poetry (Tortured Willows, 2021) and excellence in short nonfiction for “Horror Writers: Architects of Hope” in Siren’s Call ezine Halloween 2021, she was also a Bram Stoker Finalist for long fiction (Bitter Suites, 2018). She was selected as HWA Mentor of the Year for 2020. In addition, four of her poetry chapbooks have been nominated for the Elgin Awards with a 2nd place Elgin win for Tortured Willows in 2022. She has also received Rhysling and Pushcart Prize nominations for poetry and won the the SLF’s Older Writers Grant for 2021.
Other recognitions she has received include winning the SFPA’s Poetry Dwarf Form and the Missouri Writers Guild President’s Award in Best Short Story, Best Magazine Article and second in Poetry.
Publisher of Space & Time magazine, est. 1966, she writes full-time and seeks unquiet voices to amplify through Yuriko Publishing, the publishing cooperative she originally created in tribute to her grandmother.
Her short story “Vanilla Rice” was first included in the Where the Stars Rise: Asian Science Fiction and Fantasy anthology (edited by Lucas K. Law and Derwin Mak), winner of the 2018 Alberta Book Publishing Award, Best Speculative Fiction of the Year and a 2018 (Canadian SF&F) Aurora Award Finalist in Best Related Work/Anthology.
“Vanilla Rice” was reprinted in Bitter Suites, and also appears as one of two stories by Smith in Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, (edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn), which has won multiple awards to include the Bram Stoker Award® and the Shirley Jackson Award for best edited anthology of 2020.
Under her former byline, Angela Yuriko Cato, she worked for two years as a contract writer for militarylifestyle.com (now militarylife.com) which included interviews with Joan Jett, John Nance, Amy Dacyczyn, and Randy’L He-Dow Teton, the only living model for an American coin.
There she published over 60 articles and maintained two columns titled “SAHMM I Am” and “Military by Moonlight” as well as covered the 9/11 crisis from the viewpoint of a military spouse. She has served as a host for JournalJabber online radio talk show and has been interviewed for the Satellite Sister’s Show on National Public Radio for her nonfiction work.
She has a large collection of regular newspaper clips from her freelance work at The Community News in Browns Mills, New Jersey, The Daily News in Fort Walton Beach, Florida and The Kansas City Star in Kansas City, Missouri. In 2016 she published her own online newspaper, The Panhandle Focus, for one year. The archives of that publication are available on Amazon.
She finished her career with newspapers as the Editorial Assistant at the Bay Beacon based on the Emerald Coast and taught creative writing, poetry craft and social media at Northwest Florida State College.
She currently serves as a Trustee for the Horror Writers Association and as the editor for the HWA Poetry Showcase for the upcoming volumes IX and X and the HWA Poetry blog.
Angela currently lives in Brazil with her husband Ryan Aussie Smith, an adult son and their three dogs.
To find her books, visit her Amazon page.