Nutting attended Bloomingdale High School in Valrico, Florida. She received a bachelor's degree from the University of Florida and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Alabama. At the University of Alabama, she served as editor of the Black Warrior Review. Nutting has taught creative writing at John Caroll University and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She currently teaches at Grinnell College.

Nutting is author of the short story collection Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls. The book was selected by judge Ben Marcus as winner of the 6th Starcherone Prize for Innovative Fiction. The book was a ForeWord Book of the Year finalist, as well as an Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal finalist for thought-provoking texts.

Tampa is a novel that combines erotica, satire and social criticism. It claims to address double standards like gender-based expectations of females, regarding beauty and the great extent of mischief that women may be forgiven provided they are young and beauteous. The novel centres on a middle-school teacher who has sexual relations with her students. Nutting was inspired by Debra Lafave, a teacher charged with having sex with her under-age students in 2005. Nutting went to high school with Lafave; seeing someone she knew on the news raised her awareness of the issue of female predators. The book was banned in many bookstores for being too explicit.

She contributed to The &NOW Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing, &NOW Books, May 2013.

Her writing has appeared in The Norton Introduction to Literature, Fence, Tin House, the New York Times, Bomb, Conduit, and O: The Oprah Magazine.

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