Moore, Lisa 1964–

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Moore, Lisa 1964–

(Lisa Lynne Moore)

PERSONAL: Born 1964, in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada; married; children: Eva, Cotheo. Education: Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, B.A.; attended Memorial University.

ADDRESSES: Home—St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. Agent—c/o Author Mail, House of Anansi Press, 110 Spadina Ave., Ste. 801, Toronto, Ontario M5V 2K4, Canada.

CAREER: Writer. Globe and Mail, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, bi-weekly columnist. Also writes for radio and television. Worked numerous full-and part-time jobs in the arts and has taught continuing education at Memorial University.

Has also worked with the Choices for Youth organization and appeared as herself in the Canadian television documentary, Hard Rock & Water, 2005.

AWARDS, HONORS: Canadian Authors' Association Prize for short fiction, for Open: Stories; first prize, Writers' Alliance of Newfoundland award; Labrador awards, including 2002, for short story "Contra," Arts and Letters Award, Province of Newfoundland, for "Contra."

WRITINGS:

Degrees of Nakedness: Stories, Mercury Press (Stratford, Ontario, Canada), 1995.

Open: Stories, Anansi (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2002.

Short stories have appeared in numerous Canadian literary journals, including Prism, Event, Canadian Fiction, Tickleace, and the New Quarterly. Work has also appeared in anthologies, including Extremities: Stories from the Burning Rock, Coming Attractions, and The Journey Prize Stories, selected by Elizabeth Hay, Lisa Moore, and Michael Redhill, McClelland & Stewart, 2004.

Open has been translated into French.

SIDELIGHTS: Lisa Moore trained as an artist, but she is also the author of short-story collections. Most of Moore's stories take place in her birthplace and home, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. In her first collection, Degrees of Nakedness: Stories, published in 1995, each story features a female narrator dealing with life's various problems, such as family upheavals and infidelity. Each narrator is unique, from a tough woman who wants to kill her husband's mistress to an absent-minded artist. Reviewing Degrees of Nakedness in Herizons, Kerry Ryan noted that in the stories the author "captur[es] … raw, intense images—of sex, motherhood and complex family relationships—against a variety of backdrops." Ryan went on to comment that "each story is brightly coloured by intense emotion and vivid, wonderful language," and called the book "a lovely collection by an extraordinarily fine writer."

Like her previous collection, the tales in Open: Stories take place mostly in St. John's but are "also connected to the larger world thematically and geographically," as noted by Elizabeth Ruth in the Toronto Globe & Mail. For the most part, Moore focuses on the vagaries of the female-male relationship in a world of moral ambiguities and explores how much control people have over determining the course of their lives. "If a reader can see both sides of a question then the important thing is not the answer but the question," Moore told Ruth. The author went on to note, "I like the idea of making it impossible to know the right answer or at least to bring people to the understanding that often there aren't right answers."

Writing in Herizons, Sara Cassidy called Open "deliriously rich, visceral and sexy," and noted that the stories are "tenuously balanced on spare dialogue and packed with startling, sensuous images." "They're also dreamy, if mercifully free of the sentimentality, implausibility and self-consciousness," the critic added. Brian Bethune, writing in Maclean's, stated that "Moore's talent is staggering, her images arresting, her dialogue, particularly between men and women, needle-to-the-eye sharp." A Globe & Mail contributor noted that the author's "writing is often daring" and commented that Moore uses "narrative as a beautiful necklace of moments strung together."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Globe & Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), May 11, 2002, review of Open: Stories; May 11, 2002, Elizabeth Ruth, "Interview: Hot from the Rock"; October 12, 2002, Sandra Martin, "Voice from the World of the Senses," interview with author, p. 1; December 28, 2002, Shelagh Rogers, review of Open, p. 1; November 6, 2004, Fiona Foster, review of The Journey Prize Stories, p. D12.

Herizons, summer, 2003, Sara Cassidy, review of Open, p. 33; winter, 2005, Kerry Ryan, review of Degrees of Nakedness: Stories, p. 36.

Maclean's, July 1, 2002, Brian Bethune, review of Open, p. 84.

This, March-April, 2002, Alana Wilcox, "Lisa Moore Opens Up," p. 41.