BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

DOROTHY MOSELEY [later SUTTON] was born at home on a small farm in Todd County, Kentucky, and grew up in a remodeled log cabin in neighboring Christian County. Beginning her education in a one-room school, she later received a B.A. from Georgetown College, an M.A. from the University of Mississippi and her Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky, where Guy Davenport directed her Blake/Yeats dissertation.

She lives with husband William Sutton in Richmond, Kentucky. Their two grown daughters are Marybeth Wallace of Winston-Salem and Sandy Larmore of Atlanta.

Dorothy Sutton’s work appears in such noted anthologies and journals as Poetry; Norton Critical Edition: Darwin (2001);The Hudson Review; Poetry Ireland Review [Dublin]; Poetry Wales; Southern Review; Antioch Review; Prairie Schooner; Virginia Quarterly Review; Quadrant [Australia], and Carolina Quarterly, and on the Poetry Daily web site. Her chapbook of poems, Startling Art: Darwin & Matisse, won the Finishing Line Press Award in 1999, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Sutton received the Tyrone Guthrie Award in 1995, chosen by both Arts Councils of Ireland and the Virginia Center For the Creative Arts for a residency at Annaghmakerrig in County Monaghan. Other awards include the Robert Frost Scholarship in Poetry at Bread Loaf Writing Conference, a Grolier Prize, a residency at Atlantic Center for the Arts, and a 1999 Individual Artist Grant from the Kentucky Arts Council.

For her outstanding teaching of literature and creative writing at Eastern Kentucky University, where her students hail mainly from the Appalachian Mountain region, she was awarded the school’s two highest honors, the Excellence in Teaching Award (1998) from students and alumni, and a Foundation Distinguished Professorship (2002).

In addition to teaching, she directed the annual Creative Writing Conference for ten years, and for more than twenty years, has edited (poetry) for Scripsit/ The Chaffin Journal. She has taught Irish literature in Dublin, Galway, and Sligo through Kentucky’s Study Abroad Program, and has given scores of poetry readings across the U. S. and in Ireland. Oxford Professor of Public Understanding of Science, Richard Dawkins, read one of her Darwin poems to the Royal Society in London, England, after his induction there in 2001.

For more information, reach the author at her website, www.people.eku.edu/suttond or e-mail her at dorothy.sutton@eku.edu

ABOUT DOROTHY SUTTON'S POETRY:

Dorothy Sutton has published two books, Backing Into Mountains and Startling Art: Darwin and Matisse [more information on these books below]

She has also published more than 200 poems in such noted journals and anthologies as Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review [Dublin], The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Antioch Review, Quadrant [Australia], Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Carolina Quarterly, and Norton Critical Edition: Darwin (W. W. Norton, 2001).

● The one American poet chosen in 1995 by the Arts Councils of both Northern Ireland and the Republic for the Tyrone Guthrie Award (a month-long poetry residency at Annaghmakerrig International Arts Centre in County Monaghan)
● Robert Frost Scholarship, Bread Loaf Writing Conference, Middlebury College, Vermont
● A Grolier Prize; two poetry grants from Kentucky Foundation for Women
● 1999 Al Smith Individual Artist Grant in Poetry, Kentucky Arts Council
● Grants for residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts (one of twelve chosen by James Dickey), Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and others
● Ten years Co-Director, Creative Writing Conference, Eastern KY University
● Currently co-editor [poetry] Chaffin Journal/originally Scripsit since 1985
●Given more than 100 readings and workshops across the United States and abroad
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Dorothy Sutton’s two books are:

● Backing Into Mountains (2009) Wind Publications] http://windpub.com/booklist.htm

● Startling Art: Darwin and Matisse (1999) Foreword by Guy Davenport. Cincinnati: Finishing Line Press. Winner of Finishing Line Press Competition, Nominated for a Pushcart Award. Poems of arts and science. Limited edition with handmade end papers. Now sold out except for a few copies which may be ordered from the author % English Dept. EKU, Richmond, KY 40475. $7.00.

What others have to say about Backing into Mountains

"Dorothy Sutton’s poems in Backing into Mountains, always aware of their historical moment, trace the arc of her generous consciousness as it ranges from Gorgeous George and Casey Jones to Pablo Picasso and Richard Dawkins, from present day Bybee Pottery in Kentucky to ancient Greece. Like her own “Prometheus Among the Leaves,” this poet steals fire from her sharply attentive life and, with its primal heat and light, singes each of her poems. With intelligence and depth of spirit, Sutton bravely confronts and engages the world, at once thrilling and bracing her readers."
---Jane Gentry, Kentucky poet laureate

Earlier praise for Dorothy Sutton's work---

"These are superb poems."
---Harold Bloom, Yale University

""Full of intelligent feeling, and feeling intelligence."
---Wendell Berry, Kentucky poet and essayist"

a radical honesty, wit, and wisdom that is rare indeed. . . .
in full command of words, rhythms, form, and a subject matter all her
own. Dorothy Sutton's work can stand with the best. . . . quite wonderful."

---Guy Davenport, Poet, writer, and artist, MacArthur Fellow
Fellow, American Institute of Arts & Sciences