WRITER | REPORTER | PERFORMER
Emily Akers (@emilyakers.jpg)
Hi! I'm Cara Michelle Smith—an award-winning writer and reporter from Houston living in New York.
My satire and short humor’s been published in The New Yorker, The Onion, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Reductress, Vulture and other outlets. I've modernized horror movie tropes, reviewed your dad’s HBO special and interrogated Ivanka Trump's not-at-all-forced love of Florida (the last of which wound up being one of The New Yorker's most-read humor pieces that year).
I've also spent 10 years in financial journalism, reporting on real estate and personal finance for Houston, Chicago and New York. You can find my work in Salon, NerdWallet, Yahoo! Finance, CoStar News, MarketWatch, the Houston Business Journal and other outlets.
In addition to performing storytelling and standup around the city, I also write OBSESSED, a Substack in which I often apply academic rigor to absurdist pop culture theories: Was every male character in Fallout written for the male gaze? Jacob Elordi and Barry Keoghan are clearly Aragorn and Legolas — but which one’s which?
The best way to reach me is via email: smithcaramichelle@gmail.com.