Shawnta Smith was born to a Belizean American mother and a Jamaican father and raised in the East Flatbush and Brownsville neighborhoods of Brooklyn. Smith received a B.S. in queer women's studies from the City University of New York, and an M.L.S. and M.F.A. in fiction from Queens College, all located in New York City. She worked as an archivist at the Lesbian Herstory Archives and as reference librarian at the City University of New York.