Born: 1962
Ohio connection: Former Resident
Athens
Elizabeth Caroline Dodd was born in March 20, 1962 in Boulder, Colorado. She was raised in southeast Ohio having moved to Athens in 1968 when her father, Wayne Dodd accepted a teaching position at Ohio University. Dodd graduated summa cum laude from Ohio University in 1983, with a double major in English and French. As a senior, she received the outstanding graduating senior awards from both the English and Modern Language departments, and then promptly went camping in Maine with her younger brother before moving to Bloomington, Indiana to attend graduate school. At Indiana University, she received both an MFA in poetry (studying with Roger Mitchell) and a PhD in literature. “Oddly enough,” she explains, “to complete my PhD I wrote a feminist dissertation about women poets under the direction of the two most ecologically-minded male professors of the department, Roger Mitchell and Scott Russell Sanders. It seems that eclectic and surprising juxtaposition have always been part of my experience.” While at Indiana University, she also edited the literary journal, Indiana Review, and taught courses both there and at DePauw University. In 1989, she joined the faculty at Kansas State University (Manhattan, KS). During her two decades at KSU, she has taught creative writing–poetry and nonfiction–as well as numerous courses in literature and women’s studies, especially those with a focus on environment. She has team-taught courses with scientists and philosophers, and led students on field trips in conjunction with their readings in environmental literature. The winner of teaching awards from both her department and the college, Dodd says, “I’ve made the classroom my environment, too–one with all kinds of temperate zones!” She also directed the Creative Writing Program for more than a decade and taught courses for students in the Natural Resources and Environmental Studies major.
Awards:
Ohioana Book Award for Nonfiction Finalist, 2009. Winner, Association for the Study of Literature and Environment Creative Book Award for In The Mind’s Eye, 2009. Kansas Arts Commission master fellowships in poetry, 1998 & 2008. Phi Kappa Phi Artist Award, 2002. William Rockhill Nelson Award for nonfiction for Prospect: Journeys & Landscapes, 2005. Ginnis-Ritchie Award for Nonfiction, 2005. Elmer Holmes Bobst Emerging Writer Award, 1992