Geek Girl Of The Week: Lorrie Moore

Type of Geek: Too-Funny-For-Her-Own-Good Literary Geek

Some women seek therapy from psychologists; others seek self help from Lorrie Moore. Specifically, they seek Self Help, Moore’s wildly successful and insightful collection of short stories about love, loss, and ambition. Moore seemed destined for literary greatness after winning Seventeen magazine’s young fiction contest at 19, but it wasn’t until she graduated from Cornell University that she secured an agent and published her first collection of stories, the majority of which were from her master’s thesis, at age 26.

Since then, she has written novels (Who Will Run The Frog Hospital), children’s books (The Forgotten Helper), and more collections of short stories (Birds Of America), all of which bear her signature wit, cynicism, and the kind of real-life observations that hit a little too close to home. Moore is currently Delmore Schwartz Professor in the Humanities at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

To read more about other Literary Geek Goddesses like Lorrie, pre-order your copy of Geek Girls Unite: How Fangirls, Bookworms, Indie Chicks, And Other Misfits Are Taking Over The World.