Dinty W. Moore

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Dinty W. Moore (born August 11, 1955) is an American writer known for essays, fiction, and non-fiction. He won the Grub Street National Book Prize for Non-Fiction in 2008 for his memoir Between Panic and Desire. He also wrote the memoir To Hell With It: Of Sin and Sex, Chicken Wings, and Dante’s Entirely Ridiculous, Needlessly Guilt-Inducing Inferno, and several writing guides such as The Story Cure, Crafting the Personal Essay, and The Mindful Writer.

Moore was born in Erie, Pennsylvania. His father was a mechanic and his mother a former journalist. His name comes from a character in the comic strip Bringing Up Father. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1977, then worked as a reporter for United Press International until 1979, and later at Falling Springs Films. From 1980 to 1984 he worked as an actor and dancer, and he was an editor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania from 1985 to 1987. In 1990 he earned an MFA in writing from Louisiana State University.

He taught creative writing at Penn State Altoona from 1990 to 2007 and was a professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Ohio University until 2020. In 1997 he started the online literary magazine Brevity, which publishes short creative nonfiction essays up to 750 words. In 2020 he co-edited The Best of Brevity: Twenty Groundbreaking Years of Flash Nonfiction with Zoë Bossiere. The New York Times praised the collection.

Moore has written many craft guides and textbooks, and six of his books are listed by Poets & Writers as Best Books for Writers. His essays and stories have appeared in The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, The Gettysburg Review, Utne Reader, and Crazyhorse. He serves on the editorial board of Creative Nonfiction and was on the board of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) from 2006 to 2011, serving as board president in his final year.