John Warner Smith earned his MFA in creative writing at the University of New Orleans. He is a second-year fellow in the Cave Canem Retreat. He has published poems in Callaloo and will be published in a forthcoming issue of African American Review. Smith’s play, Sugar, will debut in a presentation by the Grambling State University Department of Theatre Arts in 2013. Smith resides in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he directs a statewide organization dedicated to improving public education.