Life
Robert DeMott was born in New Canaan, Connecticut, in 1943, the only child of James and Colletta DeMott. Until the age of eight, he lived with his parents on the estate of well known political artist and fine-art illuminator Arthur Szyk, who published The New Order (1941) and Ink & Blood (1946) and illustrated numerous Biblical and literary texts, as well as the 1948 Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel. In 1951, DeMott's family moved to Norwalk, CT, where he attended and then graduated from Norwalk High School in 1961. He was educated at Assumption College, John Carroll University, and Kent State University, where he earned his B.A. (1965), M.A. (1967), and Ph.D. (1969), respectively. His doctoral dissertation, The Eccentric Orbit: Dimensions of the Creative Process in Thoreau's Major Writings, was directed by Howard P. Vincent.
DeMott was married twice: to Michelle Hurley in 1965 (divorced 1980), and to Andrea Berger in 1992 (divorced 2005). He has one child, Elizabeth, with his first wife. DeMott lives in Athens, OH, with his partner, writer and editor Kate Fox.
DeMott is currently Edwin and Ruth Kennedy Distinguished Professor of English at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, an endowed position he was awarded in 1998. He holds membership with the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, American Literature Association, the Jim Harrison Society, and the John Steinbeck Society of America. After 381⁄2 years DeMott retired from full time teaching in April, 2007, but continues to teach one academic quarter per year under Ohio University's Phased Retirement program. His correspondence with writers John Haines, Jim Harrison, and Dave Smith is at, respectively, the following libraries: Beinecke Library, Yale University; Special Collections and University Archives, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, MI; The Robert E. and Jean R. Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections, Alden Library, Ohio University, Athens, OH.
A lifelong fly fisherman, DeMott is a Federation of Fly Fishers Certified Casting Instructor, a graduate of Western Rivers Professional Guide School, a member of both the American Museum of Fly Fishing and the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum, Theodore Gordon Flyfishers, and a life member of Trout Unlimited. He has written on fly fishing in Trout, Yale Angler's Journal, Gray's Sporting Journal, and American Angler.
Read more about this topic: Robert De Mott
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“The life of man is the true romance, which when it is valiantly conducted will yield the imagination a higher joy than any fiction.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The clergyman is expected to be a kind of human Sunday. Things must not be done in him which are venial in the week-day classes. He is paid for this business of leading a stricter life than other people. It is his raison d’être.... This is why the clergyman is so often called a “vicar”Mhe being the person whose vicarious goodness is to stand for that of those entrusted to his charge.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“As life developed, I faced each problem as it came along. As my activities and work broadened and reached out, I never tried to shirk. I tried never to evade an issue. When I found I had something to do—I just did it.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)