By the time Smiley was four years old, her parents had divorced, and Smiley moved with her mother to St. Louis, where she lived in close contact with a large extended family. In 1960, Smiley's mother married William J. Nuelle, who had two children of his own. After graduating from high school, Smiley enrolled in Vassar College in New York. During the summer of 1970, Smiley lived with John B. Whiston in a commune in New Haven, Connecticut. In September of that year the two were married.
After their marriage Smiley and Whiston moved to Iowa City, where Whiston pursued graduate work in history and Smiley worked in a factory. In December of 1972, Smiley was accepted into the doctoral program at the University of Iowa. In 1974 she began participating in the Iowa Writers' Workshop, continuing work on her M.A., which she completed the following year. In 1975 she and Whiston divorced. With the aid of a Fulbright-Hays grant, Smiley spent the academic year of 1976-1977 in Iceland, researching Icelandic sagas for her doctoral dissertation. During this same year she also received her M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. In 1978, Smiley completed her Ph.D. and married editor William Silag.
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