Dr. Michelle Smith

A native of the Bay Area of Northern California, Michelle Smith aspired to pursue a profession dedicated to assisting people in need. During her freshman year at Mills College, a private women's college in Oakland, she determined that a career in medicine was the perfect choice to accommodate her love of the sciences and her passion to help others. Four years after obtaining a B.A. in Chemistry, Smith earned her medical degree from the University of Southern California and returned to Oakland to complete an internship and residency in Internal Medicine.

The demands of a full-time medical practice claimed most of Dr. Smith’s time; yet early in her medical career, a creative energy emerged that provided her with a forum for personal expression. Reflecting on her family's experience with tragedy, she realized that her life was replete with fascinating anecdotes that would serve as excellent seed for riveting story lines. After 11 years of practicing medicine, a desire to write prose more compelling than entries in a medical chart motivated Smith to reduce her work schedule and pen the first chapter of her novel, Hide and Seek.

Dr. Smith enrolled in novel mechanics courses and studied the craft of writing with the same intensity she used in preparing for her medical boards. “I knew there were writing skills and techniques I would find useful and, as with all of my education, I was committed to doing my best.” The more she wrote, the more she found her new venture a befitting and stimulating avenue through which she could utilize her knowledge of medicine. “In my medical practice I emphasized health maintenance and disease prevention, but I was frustrated that I wasn’t reaching a larger segment of my patient population. I found that through writing magazine articles I could promote these concepts to more people.”

While constructing Hide and Seek—a dark suspense that unfolds the metamorphosis of a troubled nine-year-old girl who discovers an uncanny ability to communicate with spirits while she and her dysfunctional family struggle with domestic violence and the two-year-old death of her younger brother—Smith read voraciously about the business of writing and familiarized herself with the publishing industry.

In 2001, the physician-author founded The Ebony Quill, LLC, through which she continues freelance writing for consumer and trade magazines, focusing on subjects that range from health to travel. She enjoys attending writers conferences and welcomes the challenge and excitement of writing fiction and non-fiction. She also enjoys studying the writing styles of other authors to congeal much of what she has learned about novel writing.

“People always ask if Hide and Seek is a medical thriller. My novel has medical scenes in it, but I characterize it as a dark suspense with a bit of mysticism. It seems to have evolved as though it has a mind of its own,” she reflects. “But I’m writing the story that’s inside me.”

Dr. Smith is a member of The Authors Guild, the National Writers Union, The National League of American Pen Women and the Central Coast Writers Branch of the California Writers Club. She has completed the final rewrites of Hide and Seek and is searching for literary agent representation.