Tara Grover Smith

I’m Tara Grover Smith, director of the short film The Joymaker and co-director of the short Two Kisses. I am originally from Texas, where I received a Bachelor’s in Professional Writing from Baylor University and a Master’s in English/Creative Writing from Southern Methodist University. I settled in the Sierra Nevada foothills in 2005 with my husband where we lived a happy, quiet life of contemplation and writing, with the exception of the cheerful chaos five step-children brought on weekends. That was the longest either of us have lived in a home before we fled for our lives from the Camp Fire on November 8, 2018. Thankfully I took my laptop and except for my latest notes on the adaptation script I was working on, my writing was saved.

I was a 2014 Fresh Ink playwright contest winner with Blue Room Theater. A co-writer and I were semifinalists in the 2016 Scriptapalooza TV pilot contest for ‘Roses,’ which was optioned by Bee Holder Productions. I started a national and international current affairs magazine, named one of ten best new magazines in 2012 by Library Journal. Publications include Edible Shasta-Butte, Empirical, Equanimity, Paradise Post, Fairfield Review, Illya's Honey, Boston Literary Magazine.