Patti Smith published the acclaimed memoir Just Kids (2010), about her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and their development as young artists in New York City. It won the National Book Award for nonfiction. She also published collections of poetry, such as Babel (1978) and The Coral Sea (1996), and wrote other memoirs, including M Train (2015), Year of the Monkey (2019), and Bread of Angels (2025).