Discover R.E. Smith and his Books
MY VISION
My vision is simple: to tell stories that feel honest, human, and worth remembering.
I want to write books about ordinary people facing extraordinary things, whether that means fear in the woods, ghosts from history, impossible worlds, or the quiet battles people carry inside themselves. No matter the genre, I want my stories to have heart, grit, family, sacrifice, and truth at the center.
I believe stories should do more than pass the time. They should leave a mark. They should remind us where we came from, what we stand for, and what people are capable of when the road gets dark.
For me, writing is not just about making books. It is about leaving something behind.
My Journey:
My Journey
I did not come to writing by way of classrooms, literary circles, or some perfectly planned road. I came to it the long way.
I grew up around family, hard work, and construction, learning early that you do what needs doing and take care of the people beside you. As a young adult, I volunteered as a firefighter for a while, and that spirit of service stayed with me.
In 1995, my road changed when I moved to Georgia and began working in IT. Over the years, I worked for companies like MCI WorldCom and IBM, built websites, wrote small programs, and remotely repaired computer systems. I learned how to build, troubleshoot, adapt, and solve problems, lessons that followed me into every part of my life.
Life took me through a lot of doors. I worked in 911 dispatch, then served in Georgia law enforcement for the majority of my career. Eventually, I found my way back into IT and video work in Florida, making commercials, building websites, writing small programs, and helping people bring their ideas to life.
Each part of that journey taught me something different. Technology taught me how to solve problems. Dispatch taught me how fast an ordinary day can turn. Law enforcement taught me what people are capable of, both good and bad. Fire service taught me courage, service, and the value of showing up when someone needs help.
Then illness changed the road again.
After becoming disabled, I had to find a new way forward. Writing became that road. It gave me a way to keep working, keep creating, and keep telling the kinds of stories that had been gathering in my mind for years.
Today, my life is centered around family. My wife and I live on a stretch of land where family is never far away. My daughter, her husband, and our three grandbabies have their place nearby, and my mom and dad have their cabin there too. That means more to me than anything. I spend my days helping take care of the people I love, especially those grandbabies, and I will keep doing that for as long as God allows me to.
When there is spare time, I write.
My stories do not all live in the same world. Some walk through haunted woods. Some reach back into history. Some cross into fantasy, science fiction, romance, or places that do not fit neatly on a shelf. But at the heart of them, I am usually writing about the same thing: ordinary people trying to survive what life puts in front of them.
I write about fear, love, sacrifice, faith, family, loss, and the choices people make when the road gets dark. I write about the past because it still has a voice. I write about ordinary people because they are the ones who have always carried the world.
My journey has not been clean, easy, or straight. Most worthwhile things aren’t. But writing has given me a new road, and I plan to follow it as far as it will take me.