Vern Smith

Vern Smith’s new novel, Under the Table, is low-rent noir set on a TV shoot for a made-in-Canada comedy sketch program slated to air on American cable, circa 1989. A former production assistant, Smith spent almost 10 years on the fringes of the film and television industry as a writer and copy editor for Canadian Screenwriter magazine. He has also worked as a newspaper reporter, political advisor, radio DJ, and caddy. His first novel, The Green Ghetto (Run Amok Books, 2019), was deemed “a model for modern westerns” by Broken Pencil. His novelette, The Gimmick—a finalist for Canada’s highest crime-writing honor, the Arthur Ellis Award—is the title track of his second collection of fiction, The Gimmick: novelettes, stories, and sketches (Run Amok Books, 2020). A Windsor, Ontario native and longtime Toronto resident, he now lives on the wild blue yonder of the Illinois prairie.