Anne Lamott
Novelist
Anne Lamott is is the author of the New York Times bestsellers "Grace (Eventually)," "Plan B," "Traveling Mercies," and "Operating Instructions"; the popular writing guide "Bird by Bird"; and several novels, including "Rosie" and "Crooked Little Heart." Her most recent novel, "Imperfect Birds," was published by Riverhead Books in 2010. A past recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, she lives in Northern California.
A Writing Teacher’s Favorite Writing Exercises
The author of the classic writing guide “Bird by Bird” shares some of her favorite ways to get the creative juices flowing.
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5 min
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Writing That’s Too Honest Can Be “Devastating”
Unlike Faulkner, the “Imperfect Birds” author doesn’t believe you should be willing to run over your grandmother for the sake of a great novel.
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3 min
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Being “The People’s Author” (And Loving It)
Anne Lamott embraces her reputation as a popular novelist, but admits that she sometimes gets caught up in the pretentious side of her profession.
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3 min
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Writing Is Not an Altered State
Anne Lamott used to seek inspiration in “drugs, alcohol, and poetry.” But writing her novels has always been more like arduous manual labor than an ecstatic high.
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4 min
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Making Characters “Reveal Themselves to You”
Creating fictional people that seem real requires, among other things, writing a final draft in which you “take out all the lies.”
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5 min
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When Novels Take on Social Issues
Some social problems are too complex to attack in a 1,500-word editorial.
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5 min
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On Being a “Tough” Writer
“The difference between a writer who toughs it out and one who doesn’t is that you push through the parts where you know that you’ve just written seven pages when […]
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2 min
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