Dr. Mark Smith-Soto

Professor of Spanish

UNCG Department of Romance Languages

Education | Awards,Grants,Special Appointments | Employment | Courses | Research | Scholarship | Personal Statement

Education

• B.A., University of Maryland, 1970
• M.A, University of California at Berkeley, 1972
• Ph.D. University of California at Berkeley, 1975

Awards, Grants, Special Appointments

• Special Appointments
• Head, Department of Romance Languages, 1986-94
• Editor/Associate Editor, International Poetry Review, 1992-
• UNCG Senior Alumni Teaching Excellence Award, 1997-98
• Director, UNCG Center for Creative Writing in the Arts, 2006-

Awards and Grants

• Danforth Fellowship, 1970
• Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, 1970
• NEA Fellowship in Creative Writing [Poetry], 2005
• Joan Lee Yang Poetry Prize, UNC Berkeley, 1973, 1974
• Nimrod Pablo Neruda Poetry Competition, finalist with publication, 1983
• Plum Review International Poetry Contest, finalist with publication, 1995
• Salmon Run Press National Poetry Book Award, Finalist and Honorable Mention, 1996
• Chiron Review Annual Poetry Competition, First Prize, 2000
• Rosebud William Stafford Poetry Prize, runner-up with publication, 2000
• North Carolina Writers' Network's Persephone Award for Poetry [for the collection Green Mango Collage], 2000
• North Carolina Writers' Network's Randall Jarrell/Harperprints Prize for Poetry [for the collection Shafts], 2002

Best N.C. Poetry Book of the Year, Poetry Council of North Carolina, runner-up [for Our Lives Are Rivers], 2003

Brockman-Campbell Award of the NC Poetry Society, Notable Finalist [for my book, Any Second Now], 2007

Red Mountain Review Chapbook Competition, First Prize [for my collection Waiting Room], 2008

Other

• UNCG Research Assignments
• UNCG Research Council Grants
• Kohler Grants (International Program Center, UNCG)
• Dean's Merit Award for Research
• Coordinator, UNCG Graduate Language Institute in Spanish (sponsored by NEH)
• Co-Director, UNCG/Guilford Summer-in-Spain
• Co-Director, UNCG/ASU Summer Program in Madrid
• Co-Director, UNCG Summer Program in Madrid

Employment at UNCG

• Professor (1987- )
• Head, Department of Romance Languages (1986-1994)
• Associate Professor (1984-1986)
• Assistant Professor (1976-1984)
• Instructor (1975-1976)

Courses Taught (Selective List)

• Introductory Spanish
• Intermediate Spanish
• Spanish Conversation
• Advanced French
• Spanish Composition and Advanced Grammar
• Introduction to Spanish Literature
• Modern and Contemporary Literature of Spanish America
• Seminars on Modernismo, Alfonsina Storni, Borges
• Poder, Política y Amor-Seis Voces
• Freshman Seminar ("Violence in Literature")
• Residential College: Creative Writing, Poetry
• Poetry Writing Workshops (for the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies)

Research Interests

• 19^th and 20^th Century Literature of Spanish America
• Poetry, translation theory and practice, theatre.

Scholarships

• Books
• José Asunción Silva: contexto y estructura de su obra. [José Asunción Silva: Context and Structure of His Work]. Bogotá, Colombia: Editorial Tercer Mundo, 1981.
• El arte de Alfonsina Storni. [The Art of Alfonsina Storni] Bogotá, Colombia: Editorial Tercer Mundo, 1986.

Green Mango Collage, winner of the North Carolina Writers' Network's Persephone Publication Award, Birch Brook Press, June 2000.

Shafts, winner of the North Carolina Writers' Network's Harperprints/Jarrell Poetry Prize ,Harperprints, October 2002.

Our Lives Are Rivers, University Press of Florida, 2002.

Any Second Now, Main Stret Rag Publishing Co., 2006

• Other Publications
• Numerous articles, poems and translations in Thesaurus, Romance Quarterly, Hispanófila, Kenyon Review, Literary Review, Antioch Review and many other similar journals.
• Most recent publication: Waiting Room, winner of Red Mountain Review's Chapbook 2008 Chapbook Publication Prize.
• Theatre

Twelve short plays produced since 2002, including "Deal With This: Trio From the Holocaust Museum," Theatre Orange of the Carrboro/Chapel Hill Arts Center, winner of "Ten by Ten Festival Competition." Included in the anthology 35 in 10, Kent R. Brown, ed., Dramatic Publishing, 2005.