Anne Lamott was born in San Francisco in 1942. She writes and speaks about subjects that begin with capital letters: Alcoholism, Motherhood, Jesus. But armed with self-effacing humor – she is laugh out-loud funny – and ruthless honesty, Lamott converts her subjects into enchantment. Actually, she writes about what most of us don’t like to think about. She wrote her first novel for her father, the writer Kenneth Lamott, when he was diagnosed with brain cancer. She has said that the book was “a present to someone I loved who was going to die.” In all her novels, Anne Lamott writes about loss – loss of loved ones and loss of personal control. She doesn’t try to sugar-coat the sadness, frustration and disappointment, but tells her stories with honesty, compassion and a pureness of voice. Anne Lamott says, “I have a lot of hope and a lot of faith and I struggle to communicate that.” Anne Lamott does communicate her faith; in her books and in person, she lifts, comforts, and inspires, all the while keeping us laughing.
Lamott has taught at U.C. Davis, as well as at writing conferences across the country. Lamott’s biweekly Salon Magazine “online diary” Word by Word was voted The Best of the Web by Time magazine. Filmmaker Freida Mock (who won an Academy Award for her documentary on Maya Lin) has made a documentary on Anne Lamott, “Bird by Bird with Annie” (1999).
-courtesty of The Barclay Agency
• Hard Laughter (1980)
• Rosie (1983)
• Joe Jones (1985)
• All New People (1989)
• Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year (1993)
• Bird by Bird: Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)
• Crooked Little Heart (1997)
• Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (1999)
