pithosmith.com
The online portfolio of Mark David Smith:
writer, editor, and all-around pithy fellow.
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Here I have provided samples of some of my unpublished work, to help you get a better sense of the sorts of things I write.  Some of these are not given in their entirety because I am currently seeking publication for them, and do not want to cause any conflict for publishers.  If you want to know more about a particular piece, please email me.
Children's Books:
  • Moose for Dessert
    • Young Darby, on a visit to Grandpa's cabin, has a crisis when she sees a magnificent moose outside, just as Grandad tells her that they are going to have mousse for dessert.
      • Excerpt: 
"Moose?" she said.

"Mousse," he said.

She tried to imagine how he would squeeze that great big, furry, antlered moose into a tiny dessert cup.  It would be very tight and uncomfortable.

"Not just mousse," said her Grandma.  "Chocolate mousse!"

Darby tried to imagine that great big, furry, antlered moose stuffed into a tiy dessert cup and drizzled with chocoloate sauce.  It would be tight and uncomfortable and sticky.

  • So Many Kisses
    • A goodnight book with all the different types of kisses we can look forward to.
      • Excerpt:
Mother kisses, daughter kisses, silly underwater kisses;
Father kisses, son kisses, wrestling, tickling fun kisses;
Sloppy kisses, dog kisses, this is how a frog kisses...

  • Small Fry: Last Salmon Up the River
    • The lifecycle of a salmon, told as the perilous and sometimes humourous adventure of Flynn, the last salmon to make it up the river to spawn.
      • Excerpt:
Being unlikely to fight off the bigger males for the right to spawn, he had planned to sidle up to other spawning couples to release his milt into the water in the hopes of fertilizing eggs, a few here, a few there.  This is how it is for smaller fish.

"What if I am now too late again? What if all the females have long since come and gone?"  Suddenly, voices from his fryhood came jeering: You're too small. You're always last.  You'll never make it.

In despair he began to let go, to let death and the river carry him away.

"Last again," he said to himself, " and when it most mattered too."

  • Tito, the Clumsy Triceratops
    • An unlikely hero saves the dino-day.
      • Excerpt:

  • An Alphabet of Opposites
    • An unusual alphabet book of alliterative antonyms in rhyme.
      • Excerpt:

  • The Kitemaster
    • A boy struggling to get his kite off the ground finds wonder and a helping hand from a Master kiteflyer.
      • Excerpt:

  • The Hockey Puckey
    • A playful parody of a beloved children's song.
      • Excerpt:

  • This is Not a Book
    • Overbrained but undersized Billy has to convince the school bully and resident book-hater, Chester, that the thing he appears to have been reading is, in fact, not a book.
      • Excerpt:

  • The Slumber Staller
    • Four-year-old Andrea tries to convince her dad that her dolls are keeping her up past her bedtime.
      • Excerpt:


Novels:
  • Dust
    • An archaeology professor makes the discovery of the millenium: proof of Christ's resurrection. But it is destroyed, leaving him the only witness. 
  • All the Time in the World
    • Thirteen-year-old Jason Wendersly is given an early dismissal slip by a mysterious new girl at school, and finds himself slipping backwards exponentially through time while spiritual forces battle for the final say in human history.
  • My Name is Brain
    • A fifteen-year-old misfit relates his life and observances as a product of the Foster Care system.







Academic Writing: Two papers written for my Master's Degree from Simon Fraser University.

  • A Pneumatic Approach to Akrasia
  • Where Do I Begin: Belonging, Delineation, and the Marginalized Teen
    • An investigation into how identities are continually reformed through the delineations of both others and self, into new identities; how marginalized youth must find places of community and belonging that allow them to emerge from their sense of brokenness.
Copyright . mark david smith. All rights reserved.
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