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. Lamott is based in Marin County, California. Her nonfiction works are largely autobiographical. Lamott's writings, marked by their self-deprecating humor and openness, 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 was featured on the second episode of the first season of the show The Midnight Gospel. Awards and honors Lamott was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1985. She was inducted into the California Hall of Fame in 2010. Personal life On April 13, 2019, when Lamott was 65, she wed for the first time. She married Neal Allen, 63, a former vice president for marketing at the McKesson Corporation in San Francisco. The couple had met in August 2016. He was a twice-divorced father of four, who had left his job at McKesson to devote himself to writing. Bibliography Novels Non-fiction (with Sam Lamott) Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage. Riverhead Books. 2021. ISBN 978-0593189696. References Further reading Bochynski, Pegge. (2010) "Anne Lamott" in American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies, Supplement XX, Mary Antin to Phillis Wheatley.