During her time as publisher of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, Smith, having previously contributed to pamphlets and essay anthologies, continued to write and produced a collection of her essays, articles, and reviews after her involvement in Kitchen Press ended. Smith's article "Toward a Black Feminist Criticism" (1982),[23] first published in Conditions magazine (October 1977) is frequently cited as the breakthrough article in opening the field of Black women's literature and Black lesbian discussion.[24] She has edited three major collections about Black women: Conditions 5: The Black Women's Issue (with Lorraine Bethel), 1979; All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies (with Gloria T. Hull and Patricia Bell-Scott), 1982; and Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (first edition, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983; second edition, Rutgers University Press, 2000). She has since collected her various writings in the anthology The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom in 1998.