Michael Holley Smith

My writing career fundamentally began in San Antonio, Texas when I was studying philosophy and was required to meet tight deadlines for voluminous readings and reports on the subjects of phenomenology, ontology and epistemology. At the same time, I worked as a therapist technician at a state mental asylum, where I founded the first creative writing therapy program in Texas. I taught patients how to write sonnets and published their works. When I moved to NYC in the early 70s with a couple of modern dancers from Yugoslavia, I got a job on 42nd & Fifth Ave. as a resume writer, as well as handling all typography and typesetting (Linotype back then), for many major name customers, including the Chief of Detectives of the NYPD. Having had enough of the lawless, chaotic culture of NYC in 1977, I fled to a cabin on a river in Texas and drafted THE RESUME WRITER'S HANDBOOK. (I typed it on a borrowed Underwood typewriter.) I designed it cover-to-cover, became an official publisher (Bowker), had the book set, pasted/corrected and printed it. Sales were so successful so fast to B. Dalton, Fifth Ave. Booksellers, etc., that I took the receipts and book to the seven largest publishers in NYC. Of seven offers, I chose Harper & Row, who printed two editions in six formats for 23 years. In 2008, I created a new art form and HCP published BIOBLOGS: RESUMES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY. This year, I self-published an ebook, CHARACTER AT WORK: A FIELD GUIDE FOR CREATIVE PERFORMERS. I am also a visual artist, one directed a play at the Brooklyn Museum, and like to race motocross and enduros. I am in San Antonio working on a follow-up to Character At Work.