About

Sherri L. Smith is the author of multiple award-winning fiction and nonfiction books for young people including the 2021 Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Golden Kite Award winner, The Blossom and the Firefly and the California Book Awards Gold Medalist, Flygirl.  Her novels appear on multiple state reading lists and have been named Amelia Bloomer, Junior Library Guild, Children's Book Council, Southern California Independent Booksellers Award, and American Library Association Best Books for Young People selections.  She also writes comics, including Bart Simpson Comics, James Cameron's Avatar and most recently, Wonder Woman.  Sherri was a 2014 National Book Awards judge in the Young People’s Literature category. She has been a writer-in-residence at Hedgebrook in Washington State, Wellstone-in-the-Redwoods and Dorland Mountain Arts Colony in California, and Wassard Elea in Ascea, Italy.

Sherri holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film and Broadcast Journalism, an M.S. in Business and an M.A. in Humanities.  Sherri holds a certificates in the Art of Archetypal Fairy Tale Analysis from the Assisi Institute; in Enchantivism—a form of "activism for introverts" that uses deep storytelling, mythology, dreams and the environment to enact positive change in the world— from Pacifica Graduate Institute; and in Applied Mythology, also from Pacifica.

Born in Chicago, IL, Sherri has lived on all three coasts (West, East and Lake Michigan!). She has worked in film, animation, comic books, construction, and a monster factory.   Her jobs have included working stop-motion animation on Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!, and three years at Disney TV Animation, helping to create stories for animated home video projects.

Currently, Sherri teaches in the MFA in Children’s Writing Program at Hamline University.  Formerly, she taught at Goddard College. She was also the 2021 Mina Hohenburg Darden Visiting Professor at Old Dominion University. 

In addition to public speaking, Sherri offers creativity courses a member of the Two Trees Writers’ Collaborative and the founder of Story Forest, a liminal space where writers follow the old tales to find their own path.

She lives in Los Angeles with the love of her life and a disreputable cat.

Sherri is represented by Kirby Kim of Janklow and Nesbit.