She’s a painter. He’s a poet. Together, they create children’s books full of whimsy and wonder. But decades before all that, they were two high school sweethearts, falling in love over postcards scribbled with poetry.
Written by Ashley Wilson Fellers. Courtesy of Michelle Mcdowell Smith / Ashley Wilson Fellers
Brushstrokes & Words
At an arts festival, it’s hard to walk past Michelle McDowell Smith’s tent without stopping. On striking, large-scale canvases, snowy owls swoop through starlight. Foxes leap; fawns doze. Viewers flock to the art as if tugged by invisible thread.
And this is the moment when most visitors notice a slip of paper tacked beside each painting, the type arranged in neat lines. They’re poems, all penned by the artist’s husband, Toby Smith.
The visitors read slowly. Sometimes, they put a hand to their heart. Sometimes they laugh or blink back tears as another layer of meaning unfolds.
But if this creative pairing feels natural, it wasn’t always a given. In fact, when it comes to the collaborative life they’ve built, perhaps no one is as surprised as Michelle and Toby themselves.
A Teenaged Romance
As students at the same Florida high school, the pair first crossed paths when Michelle was 15 and Toby was 16, and their relationship blossomed into one built on trust.
“In the ’90s, in my friend group, there was no one I could talk to about art and poetry,” Toby said. “Michelle became that person for me.”
He was just beginning to explore a secret interest in writing—something he kept even from family—and she was a safe sounding board.
“I was captivated,” she said, remembering the time he hand-copied a poem by e.e. cummings, tucking it into a note for her. “No other teenagers I knew were expressing themselves that way.”
The couple fell into an easy back-and-forth of sharing ideas—a rhythm that would later become the bedrock of their creative life.
The Postal Exchange
After graduation, Michelle and Toby decided to pursue separate paths. Michelle left for the Savannah College of Art and Design, determined to build an artist’s life.
Toby lived abroad for several years before returning to Florida State. But they kept in touch by letters and postcards, which they scribbled with stories from everyday life and, increasingly, with Toby’s original poetry.
“I can remember climbing out of the window of my apartment,” Michelle said. “I’d sit on the roof and write letters, watching the Savannah tour buses go by.”
After years apart, they planned a reunion in Savannah and rekindled their relationship. And by Christmas break of Michelle’s senior year, the couple was at an inflection point.
“I was worried that if we didn’t make a deliberate decision to stay together, our lives would just veer apart again,” said Toby. “So when she was like, ‘What are you going to do when you graduate?’ I said, ‘Well, what if we got married?’”
They celebrated their wedding that summer, in a park by the river.
A Long Detour
At the start of their marriage, the plan seemed simple: Michelle would pursue her art, and Toby would focus on the kind of “adult” career in finance that family and friends encouraged. But right away, something felt off.
“It was like a slow-motion disaster that lasted for years,” he said. “I was not a good fit for corporate America.”
Michelle found modest success as a painter, and the couple had three children. And in the midst of those changes, when Toby was laid off from work, he decided to build a creative life alongside her as a poet and writer of children’s books.
“It was a little bit bananas,” he admits with a laugh. “We ran out of money so fast.”
Meanwhile, the pressures were taking a toll on Michelle’s creativity—“I had no ideas left, and I didn’t feel worthy of it, somehow,” she remembered—so she stopped painting and took a job working at a children’s day school, plus a side gig babysitting and a weekend job at an art gallery. It was the beginning of a long, discouraging detour.
“It was just a struggle, and we were exhausted,” admitted Toby, who eventually returned to traditional work to make ends meet. Sensing that his wife needed art to thrive, he nudged her back toward painting full-time. And when she picked up her brush again, something new emerged.
“I think I was just looking for happiness,” Michelle explained. Animals appeared on the canvas, imbued with the glimmering storybook style that’s since become her signature. She collaged antique illustrations into the underpaintings, peeking out as if obscured by mist. “I wanted it for other people—for them to be able to find that childlike sense of wonder,” she said. “But I think I needed it for myself, too.”
And audiences responded overwhelmingly.
“It took about a year for her to have real success, which is remarkable in art terms,” Toby said. “By 2014, she’s selling paintings, and by 2015, it was clear that we were on a path.” He quit his job to support the business full-time, and they began travelling cross-country, selling paintings at art shows and meeting fans along the way. For the first time, they were making a creative livelihood together…and finding real community.
“We talk with sometimes hundreds of people over a weekend,” Toby said. “Hearing stories from them, sharing our story—that sort of connection has become something we need.”
Meanwhile, Toby experimented with poems inspired by his wife’s paintings, and when he first began posting them at festivals, the audience resonated. It was around that time that visitors began suggesting a children’s book, and Toby put a draft together.
But Michelle sensed the time wasn’t right: “I was still new at this. And I was so worried then that if we put my work into a children’s book format, it would put me in a box: ‘She’s an artist and she does children’s illustrations,’” she explained.
So Toby tucked the draft away.
It took the COVID-19 pandemic to unearth it.
A Crisis & a Comeback
In March of 2020, Michelle and Toby were queuing to set up at a festival in Phoenix when they learned the event was canceled. As they drove home cross-country, cancelation after cancelation showed up in their email inbox.
In a matter of days, their entire lineup of festivals was wiped out.
Searching for a way to save their business, Toby re-pitched the idea of a children’s book—one they could ship directly to followers. “She said, ‘Oh my god—yes,’” he said. “It was the right time.”
They put out an announcement to followers, and by May, their first lavishly illustrated book was in print.
“We had so many preorders,” Michelle remembered with shock. “I think the people we’d met over the years really wanted to be there for us in that time.”
Six years have passed since then. In the interim, the couple settled in Roanoke—a place they chose for its small, welcoming arts community—and they published a second story. By now, they’ve sold thousands of copies.
“It’s so touching,” Michelle said. “I don’t think we had any idea how much people would love the books.”
A third book, Moon Song, is slated to arrive this fall—a culmination of a dream they didn’t know they had.
“We weren’t expecting how people would treasure the book—how it would become a shared family experience,” Toby said. “Neither of us would have guessed that, and now that it’s happening…We’ll cherish it forever.”
Michelle and Toby’s latest book will be available in Roanoke at Black Dog Salvage, in Floyd at The Book House, in Lewisburg, West Virginia, at A New Chapter, or online at michellemcdowellsmith.com/the-book-shop. Additional brick-and-mortar locations are forthcoming.
The story above first appeared in our September/October 2026 issue.
