Michael Dwayne Smith lives near a ghost town in the Mojave Desert with his wife, rescued horses, and Calamity the California calico cat. He is the author of five books, "Shaking Music from the Angry Air" being his fourth, with his "Roadside Epiphanies Resurrection" forthcoming by 2026. He's a recipient of both the Hinderaker Poetry Prize and the Polonsky Prize for fiction; recent award nominations include three for the Pushcart Prize, three for Best of the Net, and one for the StorySouth Million Writers Award. His work appears in more than three hundred journals, magazines, anthologies, textbooks, and newspapers around the world, including The Cortland Review, Gargoyle, Third Wednesday, Heron Tree, Star 82 Review, New World Writing Quarterly, Superstition Review, Monkeybicycle, Chiron Review, San Pedro River Review, and Heavy Feather Review. He is Professor Emeritus of Education and Educational Technology at Victor Valley College, and, when not writing or teaching, he serves as publisher/editor-in-chief of Mojave River Press & Review; he's also served as editor-in-chief of the literary journals Cease, Cows and Mosaic, as guest editor of Cholla Needles Literary Journal, and as a judge for the Dogfish Head Poetry Prize in book-length collections. A passionate whisk(e)y enthusiast, he hosts educational tastings, publishes fine spirits reviews, and is writing a book for working class folk about whisk(e)y appreciation and an evolution to expert taster, all blended with leading a creative life.