
Lorrie Moore
Lorrie Moore (born Marie Lorena Moore) is an American fiction writer known mainly for her humorous and poignant short stories. She was born in Glens Falls, New York, and nicknamed "Lorrie" by her parents. She attended St. Lawrence University and at 19, 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, where she was taught by Alison Lurie. Upon graduation from Cornell, Moore was encouraged by a teacher 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.