was born in Manhattan in 1946; she lived in the Southeast Bronx until she was 9 and then moved to Kew Gardens, Queens. She attended New York City public schools (61, 99, and 191), and Queens College (CUNY) where she graduated with a B.A. in English, Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa. She also spent a year in a program of study abroad at Leeds University which was partly paid for by a Chancellor's Scholarship. While in Leeds she met and married her husband, Jim. For her Ph.D. in English Literature she attended CUNY's Graduate School, and majored in Renaissance and 18th century literature. It was then she taught herself to read French and Italian. During these years, Jim was doing a Ph.D. in Math at Columbia University. They lived in Manhattan together for some 11 years, 9 of it right below the large hill on which the Cloisters sits. They moved to Alexandria, Virginia, in 1980, where they have lived ever since. In 1983 they were lucky enough to find and rent, and then, in 1986, buy a small private house in a neighborhood where there are many trees, much green grass, lots of flowers and rows of flowering trees. Since the houses are low and the streets between the sidewalks very wide and their house is on a hill, they can see a wide blue sky overhead. It is a peaceful and quiet block.

For her publications and other professional details, see her Résumé. For a paper on how she came to make this website, see her Freedom of the Press Belongs to the Woman Who Owns One. She and Jim have a blog, and she keeps 4 galleries of pictures, which have appeared on the blog. For an explanation of the playful pseudonyms she uses on the blog, see A Playful Pseudonymous Blog. Laura and Isobel have blogs too, and we now have pictures of ourselves, South Park style.

Ellen Moody has been teaching as a lecturer in various English Departments at senior colleges on the East Coast for a span of time which crosses thirty years. Between 1972 and 1976 she taught first at Brooklyn College and then at Queens College of the City University of New York. She was able to cease teaching in the later 1970's because she won a couple of awards, including an American University of Women scholarship. She began teaching again in 1986 at The American University in Washington, D.C. From 1986 to 1988 she taught freshman composition and introductory literature courses at AU and also taught advanced literature courses for the Northern Regional Center of the University of Virginia. In 1989 while at the American Univerisity, she began teaching for the English Department of George Mason University. She ceased teaching at The American University at the end of 1991, but carried on at George Mason University where she teaches an array of general educational courses (introductory literature courses, thematic literature courses, and junior level composition directed to specific disciplines, e.g., the humanities and natural sciences and applied technologies).

Ellen and Jim Moody have been married more than thirty-five years, and they have two daughters, Laura, born 1978, and Isobel, born 1984. Laura graduated as a theatre major from George Mason University; she won the department prize the year she graduated; she is now working as a lighting technician. Isobel attended Sweet Briar College where she majored in music and minored in Latin; she will be going to the University of Buffalo in a masters program to become a librarian.

Very recently Isobel sang splendidly in her senior recital; Laura and her companion, Rob, came for the occasion and drove through the Shenandoah Valley, a short holiday, and the day after Isobel's recital, Sweet Briar had a May day celebration. And then she graduated.

Here is a poem to Jim by one of his colleagues upon his retirement:

Oh, you may talk HTML
when you're sittin' safe as hell
In the hallowed halls of DISA's JPO.
Slaving under ACTD lash,
You'll do your work on cash,
And lick the bleeding boots of them that's got some.
Now in DC's balmy clime
where I spent much of my time,
A servin' in the bowels of DoD.
Of all them balding crew,
The finest man I knew
Was our own Jim Moody, Prince ACTD.

It was Jim, Jim, Jim,
Where the bloody hell's the dough?
We've got ACTD's a-waitin'
New technology anticipating.
Now where's the R&D, we want to know!

The uniform he wore
was not much to adore
Just wide open collars and no tie.
His ropey chest hairs dangled,
his teeth were golden-spangled.
But ever twinkling brightly was that eye.
His most skillful tool
was the Dell line's brightest jewel
with his Excell spreadsheet spend plan right astride.
When the budgeteers came walking,
Jim would do the talking
And get the OSD blighters on our side.

And it was Jim, Jim, Jim,
Thank the Lord for Jim.
Ready with slides to show ya,
It's been good to know ya.
Don't forget us in the Out-years, Gunga-Jim.

I shan't forget the day,
ACOA's budget blown away,
And I went to see him with an open palm.
800 K, that's all
and we'll be standing tall.
And he cashed the check that morn without a qualm.

So it was Jim, Jim, Jim
Thanks for serving till the end.
Though we've roasted and we've flayed you,
by the bleeding god who made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga-Jim.

Curt Hammill
2JUN04