Moore, Liz 1983-

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Moore, Liz 1983-

PERSONAL:

Born 1983. Education: Received degree from Barnard College.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Brooklyn, NY.

CAREER:

Novelist, singer, and songwriter. Member of the quartet the "Liz Moore Band," 2004-05; recorded solo album "Backyards," 2008.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Selected "New Artist" at GottaGetGon festival, New York, 2004.

WRITINGS:

The Words of Every Song: A Novel, Broadway Books (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Singer and songwriter Liz Moore is, according to an article posted on the Random House Web site, a veteran of performances in New York City clubs, including such famous venues as the Bitter End, Postcrypt, the Knitting Factory, and the Living Room. She has also performed at the Hudson River museum, toured as part of the Liz Moore Band, and has recorded a solo album with producer Rob Galbraith. Most recently, however, she has become an author with the publication of her first book, The Words of Every Song: A Novel.

The Words of Every Song, Laura Hamlett wrote in a review for Playback:stl online, "is a magical creation, an interwoven collection of 14 characters, all of them a part of the music industry, their lives and stories intertwined." The author's experience as a veteran in the business of professional music gives the book special relevance, Hamlett continued, but she is also "a gifted and seemingly effortless storyteller with a knack for building three-dimensional characters and opening up their thoughts and insecurities without judgment or remorse." In addition, for Moore there is a strong link between music and the act of writing. "There's an intense connection between music and writing for me," Moore stated in an article appearing on the Largehearted Boy Web site. "I almost always listen to music when I write. And because I'm also a songwriter, I sometimes find myself creating songs that are more like stories, and stories that are more like songs. I go through phases with different artists; for a while, I could only listen to the Kinks while writing. Then I was listening to the Boston Symphony Orchestra's version of Carmina Burana on repeat. Right now I'm listening to a lot of old blues, like Robert Johnson and Skip James." "I guess," the author concluded, "that's really my goal: to write music literately, and to write literature musically."

In The Words of Every Song, Moore explores the lives of characters who are rooted in music. Because they are professionals (or want to become professionals) they have both an external face they present to the public and an inner nature that only emerges in Moore's prose. "There is a business executive, an up-and-coming female singer, a cocksure talent scout, a music reporter," declared Maggie Hill in a review for the Small Spiral Notebook, "but, in Moore's hands, they are so much more than their roles. Tom, the lead singer for a major rock band, is one of the central characters. Some of the narrative spins around the people who may be close to him, or who want to be close to him. He is a Rock Star, and his fans' fantasies of him know no bounds." Tom is signed with Titan Records, and Moore connects his struggles (which include worries about his fans) with those of other Titan veterans, such as Theo Brigham (a producer who scouts new talent for the label), Jax Powers-Kline (an executive who has surrendered her empathy to her position), Tia (a very young singer in a girl band who is struggling with her weight), and Siobhan (the lead singer for the Burn, the band that serves as the opening act for superstar Tom's tour). Presenting these stories as a series of vignettes allows the relationships between the characters to emerge gradually without the need for a strong plotline. "By sacrificing a degree of realism, however," opined a Publishers Weekly reviewer, "Moore comes close to creating a fantasy-land where anything is possible." The volume, concluded a contributor to Kirkus Reviews, is "sweet, wistful, artfully arranged: like the best mix tape anyone ever made for you."