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Author Lorrie Moore '78 has been selected to receive the 18th annual PEN/Malamud Award, given annually since 1988 in honor of the late Bernard Malamud to recognize a body of work which demonstrates excellence in the art of short fiction.

Moore, who received an honorary degree from
St. Lawrence and spoke at Commencement in 2004, has written fiction, reviews and essays appearing in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Harper's, Best American Short Stories, The Yale Review, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times and elsewhere. She is the author of two novels and three collections of stories, the most recent of which, Birds of America, was a National Book Critics’ Circle Award Finalist and the winner of the Irish Times International Prize for Literature. She has also edited several anthologies and written two children’s books. In 2004 she was awarded the Rea Award for achievement in the short story. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where she teaches at the University of Wisconsin.

Moore will return to campus September 21 to open the 2005-2006 Writers Series, as part of the University's Sesquicentennial. Her visit is funded by the endowment established to support the Viebranz Visiting Professor in Creative Writing.

The PEN/Malamud Award includes a Memorial Reading in the 2005/06 PEN/Faulkner reading series at the Folger Shakespeare Library and a prize of $5,000. The selection committee includes a panel of PEN/Faulkner board members, together with representatives of Malamud’s literary executors. Previous PEN/Malamud Award winners include: John Updike, Saul Bellow, Frederick Busch, Andre Dubus, Eudora Welty, Grace Paley, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Munro, John Barth, SUNY Potsdam alumnus T. Coraghessan Boyle and Ann Beattie, among many others.

The PEN/Faulkner Foundation, now celebrating its 25th year, "is committed to building audiences for quality literature and bringing writers together with their readers."

Posted: June 23, 2005