Leanne E. Smith joined the faculty in Spring 2007. As a student, she received the Robert H. Wright Alumni Leadership Award and several honors from the English department: Outstanding Graduate Student, the John D. and Dorothy C. Ebbs Fellowship, Outstanding Senior, the Russell Christman Memorial Scholarship, and the Gravely Foundation Award. She was president of the ECU Poetry Forum, English Graduate Student Organization, and ECU Folk & Country Dancers; Production Editor for The Wisteria Review; a DJ/newscaster at WZMB 91.3 FM; and an Orientation Assistant. Before returning to ECU, she was a journalist/photographer with a local-news weekly. As Class Notes Editor for East: The Magazine of East Carolina University, she compiled alumni notes and obituaries. Academically, she is a generalist. She enjoys fashion, water, and gender in literature; French language, literature, and culture; Shakespeare comedies; Britcoms and classic TV and films; international food; American history; photography; and folk music, dance, lore, and culture. She is a freelance writer, editor, and photographer. She is Associate Director of the ECU Poetry Forum and Faculty Advisor for the ECU Folk & Country Dancers. In the community, she is active in the Folk Arts Society of Greenville and the Green Grass Cloggers. Her photos appeared as the cover images for several issues of Tar River Poetry. For her thesis in Goucher College's MFA in Creative Nonfiction program, she began a manuscript about the Green Grass Cloggers' 40-year history.
Degrees
B.A. East Carolina University
M.A. East Carolina University
M.F.A. Goucher College
Primary Areas of Research/Teaching
Creative Nonfiction and Literary Journalism
NC Literature and Culture
Folklore
Courses Taught
3860: Introduction to Nonfiction Writing
1200: Composition
1100: Composition
Selected Publications and Presentations
"Rolling Ahead." Interview with Gene Roberts, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. Pirate's Revenge (July 2012).
"History." Green Grass Cloggers. June 2012.
"Green Grass Cloggers: Squared Up Counterculture Kids & the (Re)Forming of a Culture.” North Carolina Folklore Society Conference. March 31, 2012.
“Homeworkology: Three Semesters of Blackboard Homework Evolution.” Think-In 2011: Teaching with Technology Showcase. November 9, 2011.
Encyclopedia Virginia. Entries on Annie Dillard, Emily Tapscott Clark, The Reviewer, and Marshall Fishwick. 2010.
"Head-to-Toe: Deliberate Dressing and Accentuated Accessories in Flannery O'Connor's 'Revelation,' 'A Late Encounter with the Enemy,' and 'Everything That Rises Must Converge.'" Flannery O'Connor Review. 6 (2008): 40-55.
Book: East Carolina University--Off The Record. Pittsburgh: College Prowler, 2007 & 2008.
Poems: "Wallweed" & "Diagramming Sentences with the Coked-Up Captain." Tomfoolery Review (Spring 2010). "Belly Dance." Jareeda (July/August 2008).
"North Carolina Wine: A Growing Business." The IBX Newsletter: Your Inner Banks News Source. Issue: "Wineries and Vineyards of the Inner Banks." Fall 2007.
"The Doctor of Dogfish" (Winter 2008) & "Teaching Students to Serve" (Fall 2007). East: the Magazine of East Carolina University.
"Pirate Palate: A Collection of Recipes & Reminiscences" (2007-2009) & "First Semester Farrago: An Anthology of Literacy Narratives" (2005). Editor for student writing collections.
Website Links
Graduation Address 2006
"The Poet of Coastal Carolina"
A Snipet of "Sadie" from STYLE
