Rob Smith's poetry has been described as "accessible" and "poignant." The relationship between people and their natural surroundings permeates his work, as does his curiosity for the uniquely human aspiration of finding meaning through love, work, and imagination. His poetry has received national recognition. In 2006, he received the Robert Frost Poetry Award from the Frost Foundation of Lawrence, MA for the best poem written "in the spirit of Robert Frost." More recently, in 2011, five of his poems were adapted as lyrics in a series of art songs composed by R. Michael Daugherty. The poems of the song cycle, "Love's Shades of Gray," are included as a section in this volume. The Immigrant's House is his most complete anthology to date. It includes all of his previously published poems and many which are shared for the first time. Each poem tells a life story and explores the mystery and wonder of what it means to be human.

-Beneath the guise of imaginative fiction, Shrader Marks: Keelhouse explores the interrelationships of technology and culture, authority and rule, storytelling and survival. Shrader Marks: Keelhouse contains the complete two-volume saga which began with Rob Smith's debut novel, Night Voices. After its release in 2006, readers who had followed Cathy Pearson, Shrader Marks, and the flotilla of Great Lakes refugees wanted more. Here is the continuation of that story, an adventure which follows the exiles in their new life along the North Atlantic coast. Keelhouse picks up the narrative five years later as a broken world begins to reshape itself. In the emerging reality of a world stripped of much of its technology, the voices which haunted Shrader on the first voyage seem benign compared with rivaling human incursions. This double volume contains both an updated Night Voices and the much anticipated first release of Keelhouse. Readers will not miss any part of the compelling action.