Born in Pennsylvania but raised in Hawaii, Moore worked as a model and script reader in Los Angeles and New York City before beginning her career as a writer.

Her first novel, My Old Sweetheart, published in 1982, earned a PEN Hemingway nomination, and won the Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Moore gained particular critical notice for her fourth novel, In the Cut (1995), which marked a departure from her previous works in both setting and content, concerning a New York City teacher who has a sexual affair with a detective investigating violent murders and dismemberments in her neighborhood.

[6] For My Old Sweetheart, Moore earned a PEN Hemingway nomination, and won the Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

As of a 2012 interview, Moore resided in her home state of Hawaii, though she returns to the East Coast each year to teach courses at Princeton University for the fall semester.