Lori Horvitz

Lori Horvitz is an American author and professor of literature whose creative nonfiction and memoir work explores identity, family, and the complexities of Jewish American experience. She is a professor of literature at UNC Asheville in North Carolina, where she has taught creative writing and literature for many years. Her essays and personal narratives have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies.

Her memoir The Girls of Usually traces her relationships with women and her navigation of family expectations, sexuality, and belonging. Her essay collection Talking Dirty to God examines Jewish identity, spirituality, and the body with candor and dark humor. Both works are noted for their frank treatment of subjects — Jewish family dynamics, female sexuality, religious doubt — that are often handled with more circumspection.

Horvitz has been the recipient of grants from the North Carolina Arts Council and has been recognized for her contributions to creative nonfiction and to the literature of identity and family. Her work is taught in memoir writing courses and in Jewish American literature curricula. She brings to her writing both the formal discipline of a trained literary scholar and the personal vulnerability of a memoirist committed to telling the truth about her own life.

As a teacher, she has mentored many students in the craft of personal narrative and has contributed to the strong tradition of creative nonfiction associated with UNC Asheville and with the Appalachian literary community more broadly. She continues to write, teach, and contribute to discussions of memoir, identity, and Jewish American life.