Staff

Maggie Smith

Director of Operations

She/Her/Hers

Maggie R. Smith grew up in Iowa and her early focus was on vocal music and acting. She spent 10 years of her young adult life in New York City where she studied acting and writing, obtaining an undergraduate degree in English, followed by a teaching fellowship and a MFA in Poetry from Hunter College.  

In 2003 she moved to Ireland where she led writing workshops at the Irish Writers’ Center and University College Dublin while developing a career in the burgeoning search marketing industry at Yahoo and Microsoft’s European headquarters. 

In 2009 she left the tech industry to co-found the Big Smoke Writing Factory, a learning community committed to offering a variety of creativity and writing workshops in the heart of Dublin. While Executive Director at Big Smoke, she managed curriculum, marketing and operations while teaching poetry, memoir and short fiction workshops. 

She moved back to Omaha in 2012, continuing her work in innovation product and program management and teaching writing at UNO and Metropolitan Community College until joining the KANEKO team as Administrative Director in summer 2019.

Maggie believes that in every project or purpose, good storytelling provides framework and vision while creativity generates the movement needed to evolve and inspire. She is a lazy poet, a lover of softball, an imperfect gardener, a mother to Lyla Jane, three cats and a headstrong dachshund and she makes a pretty terrific egg salad sandwich. 

For more information about administrative procedures, human resources, the KANEKO calendar, and KANEKO’s mission and vision, contact Maggie.

Contact | maggie@thekaneko.org