Raised in a little coal town in West Virginia, Christopher Smith always turned to his imagination to take him away from a content but uneventful reality. From day one, two of his passions were movies and television, particularly soap operas. Little Chris used to watch soaps through the bars of his crib.

One early soap event that stands out in his mind is when the character of pregnant Alice Matthews fell from a ladder and miscarried on Another World. His father was surprised and alarmed when, at the dinner table, the toddler sweetly asked, "Did Alice lose her baby?" Chris' mother assured his father that Alice was a fictional character, not a family friend or acquaintance. But to Chris, even then, Alice Matthews and all the other characters in soap land were like friends and family. They would always be there, day after day. And Chris would always be there watching them, studying the writing and production of these glorious serials.

When he was just a young lad, Chris formed a "production company" called C.S.S. Productions, along with his niece and nephew, Sharon and Steve. Together, they wrote and starred in a number of super 8 features, popular with family and friends. Growing up, Chris created and wrote a number of soap operas. One of the earliest, Secrets at School was set in a junior high school with the writer and his friends serving as various characters. Ravenswood Manor, a spin-off, was even serialized in the school newspaper The Jacket Journal. It ended early in its run when the school paper ceased to function. Chris continued writing Ravenswood Manor, however, and 75 installments were written. As the Day Goes By, another of his works, spanned 100 chapters.

Throughout his high school and college years, Chris wrote Twisted Secrets, a campy offshoot of the earlier school saga. This continued for 140 thrilling chapters, though story plans were made well into the future, ending in the year 2020. In the story's finale, the earth moved away from the sun and all the characters peacefully (and permanently) went to sleep while singing Christmas carols around a piano that they should have broken up for firewood. Campy, indeed.

Chris attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, majoring in Communications, with a minor in Creative Writing. In his senior year, he applied for various internships at all of the daytime television soap operas in Los Angeles and New York. Fate led him to CBS-Television, where he interned at the number one rated soap opera, The Young and the Restless. Chris loved the production aspects of the show and most enjoyed one of his weekly duties of writing script summaries for the show.

During this period, Chris was developing a new soap opera about a pastor and his family who move to a small Virginia town where the pastor's wife had grown up until a tragedy had forced her to move away. That saga, Trials and Tribulations, was shelved after 9 installments, though Chris vowed to one day return to the story.

His internship completed and his college degree now in hand, Chris remained at CBS for ten years, working as a clerk in the mailroom, the Video Tape Library, and eventually returning as Supervisor of the mail department, which he christened Mailroom Place. While there, he often interacted with the various TV shows taping at CBS, as well as actors, executives, casting and art departments.

His more creative needs were satisfied during this time by various writing projects. For a while, Chris belonged to the Alameda Writer's Group, where he wrote a highly praised one-act play entitled Three Humans Stuck in an Elevator. Under his new nom de plume, C.A. Smythe, Chris also created a continuing saga called Clarice, Living Life, the story of a female clone living in New York City and fighting off numerous super villains intent on killing her. Chris distributed this to various friends and colleagues at the studio. Clarice had a record run of 240 serialized chapters over four years, leaving room for a sequel. When Clarice ended, the "audience" was starved for more drama, so Chris created yet another soap opera. That next soapy saga, The Unfortunates, was quite popular with many CBS employees because it revolved around a group of mailroom workers who solved mysteries at an evil television network. It was completely fictional, but readers loved speculating as to which character might be based on what real person.

Chris also became involved with several theatre groups in the Los Angeles area. At various times, he served as stage manager, lighting board operator, sound engineer, and prop mistress, a self-appointed title that amused him. After leaving CBS-TV following a nasty run-in with a mad gunman (it's a long story that I'll tell you about later), Chris finished The Unfortunates with its 35th chapter. His next project was to return to Trials and Tribulations, the long-abandoned story, which was near to his heart because of his upbringing in a small Southern Baptist church.

In 2003, Chris teamed up with a brilliant writer whom he had met during his days at CBS. That writer, George P. Barr, Jr., became his writing partner on a new continuing drama called Burbank, a steamy story set in the Southern California studio town in the San Fernando Valley. Their creative and enthusiastic writing sessions became one of the highlights of Chris' days. Their partnership a success, Burbank is now poised to change the face of primetime television, as we know it.

In the fall of 2005, C.A. Smythe's novel, The Unfortunates, became his first book to be published through iUniverse Publishing. In fact, a gala book signing for his book was held at A Different Light bookstore on October 29, 2005, with many friends and fans in attendance, and hosted by the movie star Ingenue. Plans are currently underway to publish Smythe's second novel, the aforementioned Trials and Tribulations.

The writer is also in the preliminary stages of creating a comedic drama entitled Simple Folks, about a community of Kentucky hillbillies with as much intrigue in their lives as the folks of Desperate Housewives…or more appropriately, Jerry Springer.

In December 2004, the sequel to the earlier Clarice saga returned under the exhausting title Clarice Lovingspoon: Still Living Life, Still Loving It! In December 2006, it will reach its 60th chapter, bringing the Clarice story to a whopping 300 chapters, spanning 1997 to 2006, though less than a year will have passed for the long-suffering characters.

Chris is currently attending ANMT (the Academy of New Musical Theatre) where he is studying lyric and book writing for musicals. He is also developing a new comedic stage production entitled The Good People of Sodom and Gomorrah: The Musical! Anyone with vocal talent--or more importantly, deep investors' pockets--should report to him immediately.

He works at a post-production house in Hollywood, and lives in (where else?) Burbank, California, with his adopted daughter, Irma, a European "Black Bear" hamster, as well as his other children: Willie Talk, Gonga, Leah, Aloysius, Ollie and countless other stuffed bears, monkeys, and dogs.