Jean L. "Marat" Moore was born in 1954 in Johnson City, Tennessee to Geraldine and Herbert Moore, where she was raised alongside her brother Scott Moore. Upon graduating from a public school in Johnson City in 1972, Moore pursued higher education at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

While taking a gap year from Duke University, she worked as a reporter for the where she reported on the Black Mountain Mine Co. Scotia No. 1 mine explosions, which killed 26 people in Oven Fork, Kentucky in 1976. Upon returning to Duke University, she reported for .

After graduating in 1977 with a degree in English, Moore moved to Mingo County, West Virginia, where she worked as a reporter for the and continued to investigate issues related to coal mining. In 1979, Moore worked as a miner at U.S. Steel #20 mine in Thacker, West Virginia.

After attending the December 1979 United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) Conference in Denver, Colorado, Moore became active with the Coal Employment Project (CEP) and the Coal Mining Women's Support Team (CWST). Both organizations were formed in 1978 out of individuals from the East Tennessee Research Corporation with the intent to recruit and support women working in coal mining. She began formally working for the CEP in late 1980-1981 after several months of contributing to their newsletter, the and volunteering with their training programs in Kentucky.

While working for CEP she assisted in developing the Coal Mining Women calendar and a booklet on sexual harassment, as well as continuing her contributions to and conducting oral histories with women miners.

From 1983 to 1994, she worked for the UMWA in Washington, D.C. where she continued her advocacy for women miners and her journalistic investigations into mining issues. While working for the UMWA, she met and married her husband, Steve Linder. In 1994, both Moore and Linder were fired from their jobs at the UMWA. In 1998, Moore won the legal case challenging the firing. She later worked for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

In 1996, Moore published her first book which was a culmination of her years documenting and interviewing women miners. Moore's long-time work with the CEP came to an end when the organization shuttered in 1998 after many years of layoffs.

As of 2026 July, Moore lives in Tennessee with her husband, Steve Linder.