Anna Thomas (born July 12, 1948) is a German-born American author, screenwriter, and film producer. She is best known as the author of the 1972 vegetarian cookbook, The Vegetarian Epicure, which contributed to the rise of the vegetarian movement of the 1970s. She is currently Discipline Head of the Screenwriting department at the American Film Institute. Education While at the film school at UCLA Thomas wrote, produced and directed her master's thesis film, a dramatic feature titled The Haunting of M, a turn of the century ghost story, shot in Scotland. It was well received by film critics and shown at festivals and art houses. She also wrote her first cookbook The Vegetarian Epicure (1972) while still a film student at UCLA. Film work In 1973, Thomas worked with fellow film student Gregory Nava on his master's thesis film, a dramatic feature set in the Middle Ages, The Confessions of Amans. It was the beginning of a writing collaboration that has spanned more than two decades. In 1984, Thomas co-wrote and produced El Norte with Nava directing. The film was a critical success. Thomas and Nava were nominated for an Academy Award and the film collected honors at various film festivals. In 1995, it was elected to the National Film Registry for the Library of Congress. Thomas produced A Time of Destiny for Columbia Pictures in 1988 and worked for the studio on a few writing jobs. She returned to the independent film world in 1995 with My Family, a multi-generational Mexican-American family story set in East Los Angeles which Thomas co-wrote and produced. Today Thomas lives in Ojai, California and Los Angeles, where she continues to write screenplays and other fiction. She is the Screenwriting Discipline head at the American Film Institute. Cookbooks Vegetarian The Vegetarian Epicure Alfred A. Knopf, 1972, 305 pages. . The Vegetarian Epicure, Book Two Alfred A. Knopf, 1978, 401 pages. . The New Vegetarian Epicure Alfred A. Knopf, 1996, 450 pages. . Vegetarian and Vegan Love Soup W. W. Norton & Company, 2009, 528 pages. . Vegan Vegetarian Omnivore: Dinner for Everyone at the Table. W. W. Norton & Company, 2016, 496 pages. . Screenwriting filmography The Confessions of Amans (1977) The Haunting of M (1981), also produced The End of August (1982) El Norte (1983), also produced A Time of Destiny (1988), also produced My Family/Mi Familia (1995), also produced Frida (2002) Awards