Dinty W. Moore Receives 2011 Stanley Lindberg Award


Dinty W. Moore, author and editor of the online journal of literary nonfiction, Brevity, was presented with this year’s Stanley Lindberg Award for Literary Editing at the August 2011 RWW Residency. Moore joins a growing list of journal and book editors recognized by the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University for laboring to uphold the highest literary standards in a magazine or press. Named in memory of Stanley Lindberg, longtime editor of Georgia Review, the award is presented each year to an editor who encourages excellence in writing and who performs outstanding editorial production.

“Literary editors live and die by their convictions,” noted Copper Canyon Press editor Sam Hamill, upon accepting the Lindberg award in its first year (2004). Correspondingly, Dinty Moore has lived (but luckily not died) by his particular conviction—a belief in the power of the 750-word essay. He has upheld standards of excellence in the not-always-distinctive world of online publishing by founding and shaping his vision of a Web-based journal of concise, high-quality literary nonfiction. Moore has published thoughtful book reviews, craft essays, and brilliant creative nonfiction essays of “extreme concision” in Brevity for over a decade. Brevity publishes the famous and emerging, national and international writers. Pulitzer Prize finalists, Pushcart winners, and Best American Essays authors grace its pages, and many have been anthologized or reprinted. The RWW faculty pool has been well-represented in Brevity, with notable essays by Lia Purpura, Brenda Miller, Rebecca McClanahan, Judith Kitchen, David Huddle and others.

With his usual wit and charm, Moore accepted his framed award from Stan Sanvel Rubin, RWW Director. Juniper White (Class of 2011, printmaker, designer and writer) created the handsome certificate, marrying hi-tech digital and older printing techniques on her hundred-year-old Chandler and Price printing press at her letterpress studio, Dwell Press—an appropriate reflection of Moore’s own successful marriage of Internet technology with the older, more revered art of journal publishing.

In his acceptance remarks, Moore credited RWW Co-Director Judith Kitchen with the inspiration for Brevity, noting Kitchen’s vanguard celebration of the short form as co-editor with Mary Paumier Jones in the anthology In Short (W.W. Norton, 1996) and In Brief (W.W. Norton, 1999). Moore himself has authored several books of short-form personal essays, cultural observations, and memoir, most recently Between Panic and Desire (University of Nebraska Press; 2008). Other works include Toothpick Men (short stories from Mammoth Press, 1998), The Accidental Buddhist: Mindfulness, Enlightenment, and Sitting Still (Algonquin Books, 1997), The Emperor’s Virtual Clothes: The Naked Truth About Internet Culture (Algonquin Books, 1995), and two craft books: The Truth of the Matter: Art and Craft in Creative Nonfiction (Longman, 2006) and Crafting the Personal Essay (Writers Digest Books, 2010). Moore also edited Sudden Stories: The MAMMOTH Book of Miniscule Fiction (Mammoth Press, 2003). Born and raised in Erie, Pennsylvania, Moore earned his BA in writing from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA in fiction from Louisiana State University. He was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and has been a popular creative nonfiction seminar leader at national and international conferences. He currently teaches writing at Ohio University and serves on the Board of Directors of The Association of Writers & Writing Programs.

Congratulations to this deserving honoree, from the entire RWW community!

Stanley W. Lindberg, a native of Pennsylvania, was the editor of The Georgia Review, a high quality literary journal published by the University of Georgia. Lindberg was widely respected as a man of letters, consistently producing excellence in his work and encouraging it in others. He pushed his writers, known or unknown, to achieve the highest quality in the pages of his magazine. The Lindberg Literary Editing Award is granted each year by the RWW director and co-director, who select the recipient from a nationwide group of candidates.