Kristie smeltzer

Kristie Smeltzer, an American writer, grew up in Warwick, New York, and she attended college at the University of Central Florida. She was the university's first graduate of the MFA program in creative writing. Her work has appeared in So To Speak, The Independent, and The Florida Review. Her story "Hurricane Shoes" was chosen as a runner-up for the So To Speak 2005 Spring Fiction Contest by Elizabeth Stuckey-French. Of "Hurricane Shoes," Stuckey-French wrote: "The dialogue in 'Hurricane Shoes' is devastatingly funny. It illustrates so well the prickly relationship between mother and daughter. I enjoyed the narrator’s world-weary, impatient attitude toward her mother and Joseph. The mother and Joseph are types and, at the same time, well-drawn individuals. And in this story, too, the cancer and pregnancy are understated and serve to create more confusion, humor, and finally a wary closeness between the mother and daughter." . Smeltzer's story "Bridges" was chosen by Nell Freudenberger as a finalist in the Phoebe: A Journal of Literature and Art 2007 Fiction Contest . Smeltzer formerly taught at the University of Central Florida and Seminole Community College at the Oviedo campus. She currently resides in Moseley, Virginia and is working on the novel, Ice Cream for Astronauts.