Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott
Born	(1954-04-10) April 10, 1954 San Francisco, California, United States
Occupation	Novelist, non-fiction writer, essayist, memoirist
Nationality	American
Genre	Drama, humor, literary fiction
Children	1 son

Anne Lamott (born April 10, 1954) is an American novelist and non-fiction writer.

She is also a progressive political activist, public speaker, and writing teacher. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, her nonfiction works are largely autobiographical. Marked by their self-deprecating humor and openness, Lamott's writings cover such subjects as alcoholism, single-motherhood, depression, and Christianity.

Life and career

Lamott was born in San Francisco, and is a graduate of Drew School. She was a student at Goucher College for two years where she wrote for the newspaper. Her father, Kenneth Lamott, was also a writer. Her first published novel Hard Laughter was written for him after his diagnosis of brain cancer. She has one son, Sam, who was born in August 1989 and a grandson, Jax, born in July 2009.

Lamott's life was documented in Freida Lee Mock's 1999 documentary Bird by Bird with Annie: A Film Portrait of Writer Anne Lamott. Because of the documentary and her following on Facebook and other online networks, she is often called the "People's Author".

Lamott has described why she writes:

I try to write the books I would love to come upon, that are honest, concerned with real lives, human hearts, spiritual transformation, families, secrets, wonder, craziness—and that can make me laugh. When I am reading a book like this, I feel rich and profoundly relieved to be in the presence of someone who will share the truth with me, and throw the lights on a little, and I try to write these kinds of books. Books, for me, are medicine.

Lamott is cited as a writer who captures well the style of narrative nonfiction called particularism, coined by Howard Freeman.

Bibliography

Non-Fiction

• (with Sam Lamott)

Awards and honors

Lamott was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1985. She was inducted into the California Hall of Fame in 2010.

Further reading

• Bochynski, Pegge. (2010) "Anne Lamott" in American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies, Supplement XX, Mary Antin to Phillis Wheatley. Ed. Jay Parini. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons p131-146.
• Vandenburgh, Jane. (2010) Architecture of the Novel: A Writer's Handbook. Anne Lamott (Foreword). Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint ISBN 1582435979

External links

• Works by or about Anne Lamott in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Anne Lamott on Facebook
• Salon.com: articles by Anne Lamott
• Profile – Steven Barclay Agency
• Write TV Public Television Interview (2004)
• Minnesota Public Radio Interview (2007)
• Interview for Writers on the Record (2007)
• Goodreads.com: Author profile: Anne Lamott
• "Look at the Tea Party: Some of the angriest, most hateful people on earth, and they’re backed by what they think is Scripture”
  • Liberal Author: “People Are Always Saying, ‘Let Go and Let God…’ and I Just Want to Stab Them” – A Tea Party website responds to Lamott's remarks from the Salon article