Anne Lamott

American novelist, memoirist, and one of the most beloved contemporary voices on faith, recovery, writing, and the practice of being human. Born in 1954 in San Francisco and raised by atheist intellectual parents, she came to her own idiosyncratic Presbyterian faith through addiction recovery and the slow work of single motherhood. Her books — Bird by Bird (1994, the most-quoted contemporary book on writing), Operating Instructions, Traveling Mercies, Plan B, Help Thanks Wow (2012), Hallelujah Anyway, Almost Everything, Dusk Night Dawn, and most recently Somehow (2024) — have brought a generation of readers to a form of contemplative life that doesn't require leaving New Jersey or Oakland or your messy kitchen. Her three essential prayers — Help, Thanks, and Wow — have become contemporary spiritual shorthand.