December 12, 2025
It gives us great pleasure to present Season 10, Episode 598: Timothy Jay Smith!
Timothy Jay Smith shares his next novel Fire On The Island. We discuss arson as a political weapon and the refugee situation, as well as a look into why the USA’s aid and assistance abroad matter.
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Bio:
From a young age, Timothy Jay Smith developed a ceaseless wanderlust that has taken him around the world many times. En route, he’s found the characters that people his work. Polish cops and Greek fishermen, refugees and arms dealers, child prostitutes and wannabe terrorists, Indian Chiefs and Indian tailors: he hung with them all in an unparalleled international career that saw him smuggle banned plays from behind the Iron Curtain, maneuver through Occupied Territories, and stowaway aboard a ‘devil’s barge’ for a three-day crossing from Cabo Verde that landed him in an African jail.
Tim has won top honors for his novels, screenplays and stage plays in numerous prominent competitions. Istanbul Crossing, his fifth novel, won the 2025 Next Generation Indie Book Award (LGBTQ category), Leapfrog Press’s 2023 Global Fiction Prize (which led to its publication), the Eyelands Book Award, and the Page Turner Award for Writing. Fire on the Island (also published by Leapfrog Press) won the Gold Medal in the Faulkner-Wisdom Competition, and his screenplay adaptation of it was named Best Indie Script by WriteMovies. Another novel, The Fourth Courier, was a finalist for Best Gay Mystery in the 2020 Lambda Literary Awards. Previously, he won the Paris Prize for Fiction (now the de Groot Prize) for his novel, A Vision of Angels. Kirkus Reviews called Cooper’s Promise “literary dynamite” and selected it as one of the Best Books of 2012.
Tim was nominated for the 2018 Pushcart Prize. His stage play tribute to Matthew Shepard, How High the Moon, won the prestigious Stanley Drama Award. His screenplays have won or placed in dozens of screenwriting competitions including those sponsored by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Capital Fund Screenplay Competition, WriteMovies, Houston WorldFest, Fresh Voices, and StoryPros. He founded the Smith Prize for Political Theater, which identified emerging playwrights for 17 years until terminated due to covid-related causes.
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September 20, 2024
It gives us great pleasure to present a Season 9, Episode 37 Interview: Timothy Jay Smith
Timothy Jay Smith joins us to share his upcoming gay-coming-of-age contemporary thriller: Istanbul Crossing. It leads to discussion of homosexuality in Muslim states and a young man trying to help others get to safety and freedom, a story that grew from Timothy’s own experiences helping refugees.
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Mentioned in this episode:
- Istanbul Crossing linktree
Bio:
From a young age, Timothy Jay Smith developed a ceaseless wanderlust that has taken him around the world many times. En route, he’s found the characters that people his work. Polish cops and Greek fishermen, mercenaries and arms dealers, child prostitutes and wannabe terrorists, Indian Chiefs and Indian tailors: he hung with them all in an unparalleled international career that had him smuggle banned plays from behind the Iron Curtain, maneuver through Occupied Territories, represent the U.S. at the highest levels of foreign governments, and stowaway aboard a ‘devil’s barge’ for a three-day crossing from Cape Verde that landed him in an African jail.
Tim brings the same energy to his writing that he brought to a distinguished career, and as a result, he has won top honors for his novels, screenplays and stage plays in numerous prestigious competitions. Fire on the Island won the Gold Medal in the Faulkner-Wisdom Competition for the Novel, and his screenplay adaptation of it was named Best Indie Script by WriteMovies. Another novel, The Fourth Courier, was a finalist for Best Gay Mystery in the 2020 Lambda Literary Awards. Previously, he won the Paris Prize for Fiction (now the de Groot Prize) for his novel, Checkpoint (later published as A Vision of Angels). Kirkus Reviews called Cooper’s Promise “literary dynamite” and selected it as one of the Best Books of 2012.
Tim was nominated for the 2018 Pushcart Prize. His stage play tribute to Matthew Shepard, How High the Moon, won the prestigious Stanley Drama Award. His screenplays have won or placed in dozens of screenwriting competitions including those sponsored by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Capital Fund Screenplay Competition, WriteMovies, Houston WorldFest, Fresh Voices, and StoryPros.
