Michael A. Smith was born in Ellsworth, Kansas on December 15, 1942. He grew up in Dorrance, Kansas and attended public schools before studying at Kansas Weselyan University in Salina, Kansas. He graduated with a baccalaurate degree and then attended graduate school at the University of Kansas, in Lawrence, Kansas, from 1965-1967.

From 1968 to 1973, Smith worked as a journalist with the Salina Journal and as reporter and “swing editor” with the Great Bend Kansas Daily Tribune in Great Bend, Kansas. After working with the Tribune, Smith was appointed editor of the Golden, Colorado Daily Transcript in Golden, Colorado before moving on to work as an editorial writer and legislative correspondent for Lindsay-Schaub newspapers in Decatur, Illinois.

Smith left jouralism in 1973 to serve as the Associate Director of the Illinois Board of Higher Education. In 1982, Smith became the Press Secretary for Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL). He later worked as the Vice President, Public Relations of the Futures Industry Association in Washington D.C. He returned to journalism in 1992 to serve as a reporter for The Training Times, a newspaper for the Seventh Army Training Command in Grafenwöhr, Germany.

Along with his journalistic work, Smith has written several suspense and historical novels, a book of essays, and a stage play. Some of his published works include Secrets (1980); Legacy of the Lake (1980); the Jeremiah trilogy of Jeremiah, Terrorist Prophet (1998), New America (1999), and The Inheritors (2000); Lightning's Child (2012); The Money Game (2014); and The Last Chance Saloon (2020).

[Information retrieved from Michael A. Smith's personal website and collection materials.]