Seaton, Carter Taylor

Carter Taylor Seaton (website: http://www.carterseaton.com/)  is an award-winning author, an award-winning figurative sculptor and a certified scuba diver.  While living in Georgia she began running and completed several marathons after she was fifty, including the New York City Marathon.  

Twenty years and four children after beginning her college career, she received her degree from Marshall University in her hometown of Huntington, West Virginia.  For fifteen years she directed a rural Appalachian craft cooperative to benefit low-income women. Ladies Home Journal nominated her in 1975 for its "Woman of the Year" award. 

In 1985 she moved to Georgia to become a marketing consultant in the travel, special events and hospitality industry, serving at one time as Marketing Director of the Ironworks Convention and Trade Center, Columbus Square Mall, and as Travel Marketing Director for Underground Atlanta.  She returned to West Virginia in 1995 and now serves as Marketing Director for Goodwill Industries of KYOWVA Area, Inc. in Huntington.

Her first novel, Father’s Troubles, was named as a finalist for the prestigious ForeWord Magazine 2003 Book of the Year award in the category of Historical Fiction. Ms. Seaton's is also a contributor to the new West Virginia Encyclopedia, MetroValley Magazine, Marshall Magazine, St. Mary’s Today and the Huntington Quarterly. In 2003 her creative non-fiction work, "Family Values," was one of eighteen pieces from across the southeast accepted for the anthology, Lessons Learned, Volume I.  In 2002 her creative non-fiction essay, "On Death and Dying," won First Place in the Reader's Choice Awards at the West Virginia Writer's Conference.  She is currently writing a non-fiction book about the impact made by the back-to-the-land artisans and performers on the cultural landscape of West Virginia. In 2007 an article on the back-to-the-landers was featured in Appalachian Heritage literary journal and subsequently won the Denny C. Plattner Award for the Best Work of Non-fiction published in the journal for that year.

Her sculptures have also been exhibited regionally and nationally, with awards in several shows including The Columbus Artists' Guild, Members’ Show, Columbus, GA, Second Prize, 1998; Mountain State Art & Craft Fair EXPO’, Second Place, 1999. and one of her photographs won Second Place in the Highland Museum, Ashland, KY, Photography Exhibit in  2005.  Her work was selected for the WV Juried Exhibition in Charleston, WV in 2003 and in Parkersburg, WV in October 2007.  She was given a solo exhibit at the Gardner Galleries in Columbus, GA, in 1999 and was the featured artist at The FrameUp Gallery in Ashland, KY in September 2007. The 2008 Modern Interpretations show in Tamarck’s David Dickirson Fine Arts Gallery included three of her sculptures. Tamarack has also chosen her piece, Consider the Widow, for its Best of West Virginia show in 2008. In 2008, Seaton was awarded a West Virginia Artist Fellowship in recognition of her work in sculpture.