Lora Smith is a writer from Southeastern Kentucky and a first year MFA Candidate. She holds a B.A. in Individualized Studies from New York University and studied folklore, collaborative ethnography, and documentary studies at UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies. Her work has been featured in Bon Apetit, Gravy, the Daily Yonder, the New York Times, Nonprofit Quarterly, and NPR’s The Salt. Smith’s first book “The Food We Eat, The Stories We Tell: Contemporary Appalachian Tables” was published by Ohio University Press in 2019. Lora is also a founding member of the Waymakers Collective, an artist run grantmaking fund and community focused on BIPOC, working class, rural, and queer-led arts organizations and artists in the Central Appalachian region.