About

Martin J. Smith has won more than fifty writing awards, and his crime novels have been nominated for three of the publishing industry’s most prestigious honors, including the Edgar Award, the Anthony Award, and the Barry Award. His most recent nonfiction book, “Going to Trinidad: A Doctor, a Colorado Town, and Stories From an Unlikely Gender Crossroads,” was a finalist for a 2022 Colorado Book Award. His 2012 nonfiction book, “The Wild Duck Chase,” about the Federal Duck Stamp Contest, inspired Brian Golden Davis’ documentary film “The Million Dollar Duck,” which won the Jury and Audience awards at the 2016 Slamdance Film Festival. In 2017, Globe Pequot published “Mr. Las Vegas Has a Bad Knee,” a collection of Smith’s essays about the people, places, and peculiarities of the American Southwest. The Los Angeles Review of Books called the collection “compelling and readable,” and called Smith “a master of the essay and human interest profile form” and “one of the best nonfiction writers today.” A former senior editor of the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Smith was editor of Orange Coast magazine in Orange County, Calif., between 2007 and 2016, during which time the Western Publishing Association five times named Orange Coast the best city/metropolitan magazine in the western U.S., including four consecutive wins between 2013 and 2016. Smith now lives in Granby, Colorado, where he helped found the Grand County Community of Writers and is past president of Habitat for Humanity of Grand County.

Other Works

  • Mr. Las Vegas Has a Bad Knee

    2017
  • Mr. Las Vegas Has a Bad Knee

    2017
  • Combustion

    2016
  • The Disappeared Girl

    2014
  • The Wild Duck Chase

    2012
  • Oops: 20 Life Lessons from the Fiascoes That Shaped America

    2006
  • Poplorica: A Popular History of the Fads, Mavericks, Inventions, and Lore That Shaped Modern America

    2004
  • Straw Men

    2001
  • Shadow Image

    1998
  • Time Release

    1997

Awards and Recognition

  • Finalist, Anthony Award (1998) Finalist, Edgar Award (2002) Finalist, Barry Award (2002)
  • Finalist, Colorado Book Award (History category, for "Going to Trinidad") (2021)