Brief  Bio

DOROTHY MOSELEY (later SUTTON) was born at home on a small farm in Todd County, Western Kentucky, and grew up in a remodeled log cabin on a small farm in Christian County, beginning her education in a one-room school.  Her poems written at Georgetown College, from which she earned the B. A. degree (Magna Cum Laude), began to appear in national journals. She went on to earn an M. A. from the University of Mississippi, and a Ph. D. in Twentieth Century British and American Literature from the University of Kentucky, with a dissertation on William Blake and William Butler Yeats directed by Dr. Guy Davenport. She married William Sutton, and they have two daughters: Marybeth Sutton Wallace of Winston-Salem and Sandy Sutton Larmore of Atlanta.

Dorothy Sutton has taught literature and writing many years at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, earning its two highest honors: “Excellence in Teaching Award” (1998); and in 2002, Distinguished Foundation Professor (both awards based on an intensive survey of her service, teaching, and research/creative publications). Faculty Advisor of Sigma Tau Delta English Honor Society for 17 years, she was in 1995 was named "Outstanding Faculty Advisor in the Nation." In 1996, she taught Irish literature in Dublin, Galway, and Sligo through Kentucky’s Study Abroad Program.  Three other trips to Ireland included work with Irish Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney.

In addition to teaching, she directed Eastern’s annual Creative Writing Conference for ten years, and for more than twenty years, has edited (poetry) for Scripsit/ The Chaffin Journal. She has given scores of poetry readings and workshops in the U. S., as well as in England and Ireland. Oxford scientist Richard Dawkins read one of her Darwin poems to the Royal Society in London, England, upon his initiation there.

MORE ABOUT DOROTHY SUTTON'S POETRY:

** Published more than 150 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). Her limited edition chapbook of poems, Startling Art: Darwin and Matisse (1999) – see below – was nominated for a Pushcart Award.

** Dorothy Sutton was the one American poet in 1995 chosen 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;
     Fifteen years edited [poetry] Chaffin Journal (originally Scripsit)

*Given more than 100 readings and workshops across the United States and abroad.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FROM FINISHING LINE PRESS   [now out of print but limited number of copies available from the author, Dept. English, EKU, Richmond, KY 40475]
            Startling Art: Darwin and Matisse
                    Poems by Dorothy Sutton
                            Foreword by Guy Davenport

                        $7.00       ISBN  0-9664324-1-X
"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