Rachel crawls out from under the bed, knowing that the teenagers who broke into her home and trashed it are gone. The woman is now left in her robe, surrounded by the wreckage – spray paint on the walls, couches ripped apart and her sense of safety gone.

This is the scene Michael Farris Smith put readers in more than a decade ago when he first wrote “Chasing Rabbits,” a short story that was published in The Dispatch in 2013. Now, he has put a new audience back in that scene again, with his directorial debut – a short film with the same title.

“When you’re in a situation like that, you have to immediately start making a decision,” Smith said Wednesday night at a screening and author question and answer session in the Rosenzweig Arts Center’s Omnova Theater, discussing his tendency to put characters in challenging situations. “… It’s like life. You find out about people and you find out about yourself when things are hard and when things are tough.”

Smith told The Dispatch that he was originally inspired to write the story while he was living in Columbus, after he got the image in his head of a woman waking up under her own bed in the morning. The scene evolved into the short story, which was published in three installments.

In 2017, Smith was asked to write a one-act play for the Tennessee Williams Tribute, leading him to adapt the story into a script.
But Smith said he was talking with multimedia artist and storyteller Anthony Thaxton last year, when the filmmaker told him he wanted to work with a narrative again. This was a slight departure from Thaxton’s normal work, straying away from his recent focus on documentaries like “Eudora,” which was released at the Mississippi Book Festival last year and premiered on television through Mississippi Public Broadcasting.

Smith took the opportunity to readapt “Chasing Rabbits” into a screenplay. He started work on the adaptation in August, before the movie shot in November and premiered by February at the Oxford Film Festival.

“If you’re telling a great story, be it through a novel, or a film or writing a great song, that’s what people remember,” Smith said. “And that’s what they relate to, and that’s what creates emotions within us. That’s what creates emotions within us, stories that are moving and relatable. However I’m doing it, I’m hoping to do it well.”

Two of Smith’s novels have previously been adapted into feature films, including “Desperation Road” and “The Fighter.” But this was Smith’s first time directing a film, working with cast members McGhee Monteith, Davis Coen and Stephen Garrett to bring the story to life.

Smith also brought with him his newest novel, “Lay Your Armor Down,” which was released on Tuesday. Similar to his other novels beginning with characters in difficult places, Smith said the book begins with an old woman riddled with dementia walking off into the woods in the middle of the night – a scenario that made him feel afraid for her, but leads into the rest of the action of the novel.

While Smith now lives in Oxford, he said he was glad to bring the movie and his new book to Columbus and to come back to the community.

“I spent a lot of good thinking time up and down that Riverwalk. It was good therapy for me to go out there and run and think about what I was working on and clear my head. The people here, the faces here, the places will always mean something to me.”

The event was presented by the Friendly City Books Community Connection, a special project of the CREATE Foundation.
Bookstore owner and nonprofit founder Emily Liner said she was glad to welcome Farris back to the city for the evening.

“We’re so excited to welcome Michael Farris Smith back to Columbus,” Liner said. “He’s had such a successful career as a writer, and we can take a lot of hometown pride knowing that it started right here.”

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