Late Night Guests!

Bird by Bird with Annie: A Film Portrait of Writer Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott is your run-of-the-mill recovering alcoholic and drug addict, born-again Christian, left-wing liberal, and single mother who just so happens to have written New York Times-bestselling books, including the inspiring writing guide Bird by Bird. Very ordinary.

This hour-long video follows Lamott around for a year as she gives readings, raises her son, and participates in church. Topics great and small are covered, from the difficulty in doing anything with her kinky hair and how she became the class clown to her nightly drinking and the decision whether to have her baby or terminate the pregnancy. Along the way she dispenses writing tips, and if you're struggling with your own work, she is immensely comforting (she tells us of the difficult time she had working during the O.J. Simpson trial--she kept popping upstairs to see what was happening on TV). Funny and personable, Lamott is a wonderful subject for a documentary. --Jenny Brown

Bird by Bird with Annie: A Film Portrait of Writer Anne Lamott

Bird by Bird With Annie is a portrait of the best-selling author and laugh-out-loud funny humorist Anne Lamott and the inspiring story of a survivor -- a recovering addict and alcoholic and a single mother who is both a born-again Christian, and a liberal activist. The film, a year in the life of the writer, focuses on her gift at demystifying the creative process, the people who inform her life and writing, and the beauty of language and the written arts. It touches upon concerns of universal interest...loss, alienation, loneliness, faith, and the meaning of life and the perhaps less weighty concerns of unfirm thighs, difficult hair, and retail therapy.

Bird by Bird with Annie: A Film Portrait of Writer Anne Lamott

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Anne Lamott admits that she's "ever so slightly more anxious than the average hypochondriac." When faced with a small, irregular mole and a family history of skin cancer, however, she remembers her faith in God and enjoys some peace--despite behaving "a little more like Nathan Lane in The Birdcage than I would have hoped." Author Lamott reads these wonderfully detailed postcards from her meandering journey to faith. With sharp and bittersweet humor, she recounts a past full of bad relationships with men, with food, with drugs, with alcohol, and worst of all, with herself. She battles her demons thanks to the love of her friends and family and her "lurch of faith" to embrace religion, that "puzzling thing inside me that had begun to tug on my sleeve from time to time, trying to get my attention." Inspiring but not dogmatic, Traveling Mercies is a treasure. (Running time: 4 hours, 3 cassettes) --C.B. Delaney