Wm. Hovey Smith

Wm. Hovey Smith, an American author, writes outdoor, business, and fiction books. He is known for his work on muzzleloading guns and self-reliance. Over his career, he published more than 20 books on diverse topics, including geology, architecture, health, and predominantly on guns and hunting.

Wm. Hovey Smith grew up in a small-town farming family in Sandersville, Georgia. He received his early education in a segregated public school system before attending the University of Georgia, where he majored in geology. After earning his B.S. degree, Smith served as a Lieutenant of Engineers in Alaska for two and a half years, earning the Distinguished Service Medal. He continued his education at the University of Alaska, obtaining an M.S. in Geology.

While working as a minerals exploration geologist, Smith traveled across the U.S., often leading exploration parties in Alaska. His writing began in high school with newspaper pieces and continued with articles in college and early working years. For a decade, he served as the Corresponding Editor for black-powder guns and hunting for the Gun Digest Annual.

In his late 70s, facing physical decline, Smith hosted the podcast Hovey's Outdoor Adventures and shifted focus to writing business and lifestyle books. He updated his Short Shot series on muzzleloading guns with video-linked content, with the last published in early 2022. He also ventured into YouTube, producing nearly 900 videos.

Smith published his first novel, Father of the Grooms (2021), as a First Draft Edition. He then wrote and revised a screenplay, finally improving the novel and re-releasing it as Until Death Do You Part: An American Family Meets Their Sicilian Cousins (2021) in audiobook formats. His business book, Make Your Own Job: Anytime, Anywhere, At Any Age, also received critical acclaim.

Smith speaks on outdoor topics and entrepreneurship, offering humor and insights on survival and self-reliance. He seeks main-line publishers for his business book and novel and producers for his screenplay, "Blood Ties," which was a quarter-finalist in the 2022 Miami Film Festival script contest in the Romance-Adventure category. This screenplay adapts his novel Until Death Do You Part.

Photo credit: hoveysmith.com