A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith

I don’t read in only one genre, and I don’t write in only one, either. Below you can find information about books I have written, anthologies to which I have contributed, and books that are still works in progress. Many of my books relate to family history, with both A State Divided and Missouri Daughter delving into Civil War history — especially as it relates to my Hale, Petree, and Traughber ancestors in Missouri on my dad’s side of the family. My “Frank and Nora” books also focus on my Petree and Traughber ancestors, but this time my great-grandparents in the early 1900s. Exploring Burgenland delves into my mom’s side of the family and includes descriptions of our travels through Burgenland, Austria, as well as lots of Austrian-Hungarian history and stories about my Wagner and Halper ancestors.

You can also read more about ebooks I have published through the indie publisher Smashwords. I helped my students publish six poetry ebooks over the years - you can see the cover to the first one, Windows to the Teenage Soul, below. I also put together my own “teenage” poems in an ebook as “practice” for that class project and am now working on an updated print edition, which should be available soon. That specific class ebook project was written up in many different magazine (links to some of those articles are included in that section below), and I wrote a chapter for an ALA book titled No Shelf Required that has been “coming soon” for many years now. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Click on the book icons below for fuller descriptions.