Robin Michael Smith

I was born in New York and currently live in Texas. I have a degree in communications (emphasis on journalism) from UT-Arlington, and I am a former U.S. Army scout sniper. I am a writer and an explorer with no political or religious affiliations. My work is inspired by my conflicting feelings regarding religious faith and romantic love, along with a hardened contempt for the vulgarity and pettiness of human existence.

For many years, I have lived with this set of books authored by a "version" of myself that included many ghosts. These books by "Robin Michael Smith" have been downloaded more than 100,000 times since they were published in 2011-2012, and I have received hundreds of letters over the years from people who were inspired by my avant-garde memoir and/or the audacity of my fiction books. However, there has been much more hate, even to the extent of documented death threats, from people who felt betrayed by my ideas about life, including my own. Other critics, unequivocally, concluded that the books were horribly written and lacked refinement, to say it lightly.

Today, I own all of the feedback, including the highly critical, but it did take some time to get past it all. Along with this acceptance comes the choice to move forward to another version of me. "Robin Michael Smith" is dead as a writer, though I do think of "him" as a fighter who put it all on the line in a courageous effort to squeeze all of "his" insides into books that "I" will always believe have merit. The experience was more than a stepping stone; it was a foundation for a stronger being.

In recent years, I have been writing under several pseudonyms with zero fanfare, and I will continue along those lines, but I will no longer update or edit these books. They will remain here and either move along with a life outside of me or wither away and die, as all things do. Either way, their organic existence is out of my hands now, and that provides solace that I somehow survived past days and days of mental and emotional hardship to find a realm in which I am not a a victim of circumstances.

In addition, I no longer hold ownership of the Websites that marketed my ideas as Robin Michael Smith (RobinMichaelSmith.com and BalefirePublishing.com), so I will not be there anymore, but do find me if you believe in this work, me, and my future as a writer.

For me, writing isn't always fun or invigorating, but it is continually interesting and challenging, so I pursue it aggressively with as much heart and soul as I can muster, as a wholly different person than the young man who constructed the books found here.