Lawrence Sutin

Lawrence Sutin (born 1951) is an American author and erasure artist. He wrote biographies of Philip K. Dick and Aleister Crowley, two memoirs, a novel, and a history of Buddhism in the West. He was a professor of creative writing at Hamline University and the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Early life and education Sutin was born on October 12, 1951 in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Minnesota. As an undergraduate, he studied English and psychology at the University of Michigan. He earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard University.

Career Sutin was a full professor in the M.F.A. and M.A.L.S. programs at the Hamline University Creative Writing Program in St. Paul, Minnesota. He retired from Hamline in 2015.

Sutin's debut book was the science fiction author Philip K. Dick biography Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick (1989). He subsequently edited two volumes of writings by Dick, In Pursuit of Valis: Selections from the Exegesis (1991), referring to The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, and The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings (1996). Sutin's second biography, on the English occultist Aleister Crowley, was Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley, published in 2000.

Sutin also served as editor, interviewer and author for Jack and Rochelle: A Holocaust Story of Love and Resistance (1995), about his parents' experiences in Jewish partisan units in World War II in Poland. His next work was a history of Buddhism in the West: All Is Change: The Two-Thousand Year Journey of Buddhism to the West (2006). Sutin published a novel, When To Go Into the Water, in 2009.

Sutin creates erasure books with collaged and altered texts; He was inspired to make erasures by Mary Ruefle. In July 2021, Sutin was awarded a blue ribbon at the Island County fair in the bookmaking class for his erasure work "Lives of the Great Composers".

Selected works

Authored Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick. Harmony Books, 1989; revised 2005. Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley. St. Martin's Press, 2000. A Postcard Memoir. Graywolf Press, 2000. All Is Change: The Two-Thousand Year Journey of Buddhism to the West. Little, Brown, 2006. When To Go Into the Water. Sarabande Books, 2009.

Edited

In Pursuit of Valis: Selections from the Exegesis (editor). Underwood-Miller, 1991. Jack and Rochelle: A Holocaust Story of Love and Resistance (editor). Graywolf Press, 1995. The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings (editor). Vintage Books, 1996.