Walter Moore holds a B.A. in English from DePauw University, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Texas State University, and a Ph.D. in American Studies from Purdue University. His first collection of poems, My Lungs are a Dive Bar was published in 2019, and his debut novel The Phalanx of Houston—a story about a drifter-bartender with his G.E.D. who returns to his hometown of Houston, Texas, to solve the murder of a professional soccer player with his alcoholic father—was released earlier this year (both by EMP Books). He resides in Eugene, Oregon.
“I started this novel because I wanted to write about pick-up basketball, because I loved it, and I didn’t understand why it felt almost holy in my memories…I just wrote about the love and the fulfillment of that experience, and it exposed other things—darker things, more painful things.” Walter Moore talks with J.T. Bushnell about his debut novel, The Step Back.
