Lorrie Moore
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- For the journalist, please see Lori Moore
| Lorrie Moore | |
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| Born | Marie Lorena Moore January 13, 1957 Glens Falls, New York |
| Occupation | Short-story writer, Novelist |
| Nationality | American |
| Writing period | 1985— |
| Notable work(s) | Birds of America (1998) Who Will Run The Frog Hospital (1994) People Like That Are The Only People Here (short story, 1997) |
Lorrie Moore (born Marie Lorena Moore on January 13, 1957 in Glens Falls, New York) is an American fiction writer known mainly for her humorous and poignant short stories.
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[edit] Biography
Marie Lorena Moore was nicknamed "Lorrie" by her parents. She attended St. Lawrence University. At nineteen, she won Seventeen magazine's fiction contest. After graduating from St. Lawrence, she moved to Manhattan and worked as a paralegal for two years.
In 1980, Moore enrolled in Cornell University's M.F.A. program. Upon graduation from Cornell, a teacher encouraged her to contact agent Melanie Jackson. Jackson sold her collection, Self-Help, composed almost entirely of stories from her master's thesis, to Knopf in 1983. Moore was twenty-six years old.
[edit] Works
Her short story collections are "Self Help," "Like Life," and "Birds of America," which became a New York Times bestseller. (A great rarity for short fiction.) She has contributed to The Paris Review, and her first story to appear in The New Yorker, "You're Ugly, Too," was later included in The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike. Another story, "People Like That Are the Only People Here," was reprinted in the annual collection The Best American Short Stories; the tale of a young child falling sick, it was loosely patterned on events in Moore's own life. She writes frequently about failing relationships and terminal illness.
Moore's "Collected Stories" was published by Faber in the UK in May 2008. It included selections from each of her previously published collections, excerpts from her novel Anagrams, and three previously uncollected stories (first published in The New Yorker).
Her novels are Anagrams and Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? Anagrams was optioned by Madonna for a film that was never made. Publication of a third novel is expected in 2009.
She has written a children's book entitled The Forgotten Helper. It concerns an elf whom Santa mistakenly leaves behind at the home of the worst child on his "good" list. The elf must help the child be good for the coming year, so Santa will return next Christmas.
[edit] Awards
She won the 1998 O. Henry Award for her short story "People Like That Are the Only People Here," published in The New Yorker on January 27, 1997. In 2004, Moore was selected as winner of the Rea Award for the Short Story, for outstanding achievement in that genre. In 2006, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
[edit] Academic Career
Moore is a Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Short Stories
- (1985) Self-Help; ISBN 0446671924
- (1990) Like Life; ISBN 0375719164
- (1998) Birds of America; ISBN 0312241224
- (2008) The Collected Stories; ISBN 9780571239344
[edit] Children's Books
- (1987) The Forgotten Helper; ISBN 0440416809
[edit] Novels
- (1986) Anagrams; ISBN 0307277283
- (1994) Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?; ISBN 1400033829
[edit] External links
- Ploughshares profile
- The Believer interview (2005)
- Salon interview (1998)
