Carol Houck Smith, a vice-president and editor-at-large at W. W. Norton & Company who edited generations of the nation’s most distinguished poets and literary authors, died December 1, 2008 at her home in New York City. We at Blackbird admired her spirit, her editorial sensibility, and her support of her writers. We were honored to count her as a friend and to have hosted a celebration of her career at the 2008 Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference in New York.

Below are excerpts from her obituary as it was prepared by W. W. Norton and a brief remembrance by Ellen Bryant Voigt.