ITHACA, N.Y. -- Author Lorrie Moore, MFA '82, will give a free public reading on Monday, Nov. 8, at 7:30 p.m. in the Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall on the Cornell University campus.

Moore is Cornell's 2004-05 Distinguished Alumni Artist Award recipient, an annual award established in 1997 by the Cornell Council for the Arts (CCA) and the Committee on the Arts of Cornell University Council.

Born in Glens Falls, N.Y., Moore attended St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., from 1974 to 1978, receiving a B.A. and graduating summa cum laude . She attended the Cornell English department's Creative Writing Program from 1980 to 1982 receiving an M.F.A. Self Help , a collection of stories that came out of Moore's work in the Cornell writing program, was published in 1985 to high praise.

Moore is the Delmore Schwartz Professor in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. As recently as October she received the Rea Award for short story writing, a $30,000 prize. In 1989, she received a National Endowment for the Arts Award and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship. In 2000, she received an American Academy Award in Literature. Her publications include: Birds of America (1998), Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? (1994), Like Life (1994), Anagrams (1986), and Self-Help . Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker , Harper's and The Paris Review , and have been anthologized in Best American Short Stories and Best American Short Stories of the Century (1999). She has won O. Henry Awards and the National Magazine Award for fiction.

The Distinguished Alumni Artist Award honors Cornellians who have achieved national or international success in the arts. For more information about Moore's visit, contact Marianne Marsh in the Cornell English department at (607) 255-6800. For more information about CCA awards and programs, contact Pamela Lafayette at (607) 255-7274.