Anne Lamott (born April 10, 1954) is an American novelist and nonfiction 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.^[1] Lamott's writings, marked by their self-deprecating humor and openness, cover such subjects as alcoholism, single-motherhood, depression, and Christianity.^[2]

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.^[3] 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.^[4][5]

Lamott's life was documented in Freida Lee Mock's 1999 documentary Bird by Bird with Annie: A Film Portrait of Writer Anne Lamott.^[6] Because of the documentary and her following on Facebook and other online networks, she is often called the "People's Author".^[7]

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.^[8]

Lamott was featured on the second episode of the first season of the show The Midnight Gospel.

Lamott was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1985.^[9] She was inducted into the California Hall of Fame in 2010.^[10]

On April 13, 2019, Lamott 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.^[11]