Simon Smith lives in Port Talbot, on the south Wales coast, with his wife Rachel, daughter Elle and two crazy cats, Prinny and Winny. By trade, he is an English teacher and Head of Year in a local comprehensive school, but when time allows he also writes extensively, his writing spanning a number of genres from poetry to nature writing.
As a poet, Simon has published work in numerous journals including Ariadne’s Thread, Dawntreader and The Journal, as well as on a number of online platforms such as Naturewriting.com and Allegro Poetry.
As a keen angler, it is this that really sparked Simon’s writing when he began to wonder whether he could write prose along with his poetry, and so he did, submitting his first articles to Waterlog magazine then Fallon’s Angler. After a few years this really began to take root, leading to the appearance of Simon’s first book, a collection of angling-themed essays and poems titled Running with the Tide, published with the Medlar Press, in 2013.
Simon has continued to follow this literary vein, writing both prose and poetry, and this led to his second book, another collection of angling-related essays with the title Waiting for a Hunter’s Moon, published this time with Cambria Books, in 2021. At the end of 2021 Simon became a member of the Angling Writer’s Association.
Simon loves to walk with his wife, everywhere from seafront promenades to country parks, an interest that has led him into nature writing and short, diary-style pieces that he refers to as ‘incidentals’, essays that tell the story of everyday things that happen and those often overlooked little moments in life that often receive no more than a cursory thought. Since branching out in these directions, Simon has since published pieces in magazines such as Countryman, Creative Countryside and Welsh Country.
Simon also writes short stories and, although this is not a major part of his writing output, it is an avenue he is keen to explore further.
For everything else, from random thoughts to records of his fishing and, occasional walking, exploits, Simon also writes a blog which you can read and follow over at waitingforahuntersmoonblog.wordpress.com
