Dinty W. Moore (born August 11, 1955) is an American essayist and writer of both fiction and non-fiction books. He received the Grub Street National Book Prize for Non-Fiction for his memoir, Between Panic and Desire, in 2008 and is also author of the memoir To Hell With It: Of Sin and Sex, Chicken Wings, and Dante’s Entirely Ridiculous, Needlessly Guilt-Inducing Inferno, the writing guides The Story Cure,Crafting the Personal Essay, and The Mindful Writer, and many other books and edited anthologies.[1]
Life and career
Dinty W. Moore was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, the son of William P. "Buddy" Moore, an automotive mechanic, and Mary Catherine O'Brien, a former journalist. His name derives from a character in the comic stripBringing Up Father.[2]
Moore launched the online literary magazine Brevity in 1997,[6] which focuses on short creative nonfiction essays with a maximum of 750 words.[7] In 2020, he co-edited (with Zoë Bossiere) The Best of Brevity: Twenty Groundbreaking Years of Flash Nonfiction. The New York Times wrote of the book, "The immersive effect of reading this anthology straight through is the opposite of a flash experience, and is also lovely, like rolling down a sidewalk of lit windows...So much beauty, so much grief — the whole range of experience flashing by, leaving impressions as it passes."[8]
Moore published numerous craft guides and writing textbooks over his career, six of which are cited by Poets & Writers magazine on the Best Books for Writers listing.[9] Moore's essays and stories have appeared in The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, Harper's Magazine, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, The Gettysburg Review, Utne Reader, and Crazyhorse.
The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction: Advice and Essential Exercises from Respected Writers, Editors, and Teachers. Boston, MA: Rose Metal Press. 2012. ISBN978-0984616664.
The Story Cure: A Book Doctor's Pain-Free Guide to Finishing Your Novel or Memoir. NYC: Random House/Ten Speed. 2017. ISBN978-0399578809.
The Best of Brevity: Twenty Groundbreaking Years of Flash Nonfiction. Boston, MA: Rose Metal Press. 2020. ISBN978-1941628232.