Anne Lamott is the author of five novels, most recently Crooked Little Heart (1997). In addition, she wrote the bestseller Operating Instructions (1993), a highly personal account of life as a single mother during her son's first year; and Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, "a candidly drawn map of a writer's home terrain: dazzling peaks and weird, dark cellars." Lamott has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and has taught writing at U.C. Davis and at many writing conferences around the United States. She lives in the Bay Area.

This program was produced as part of the 1997 season of Racing Toward the Millennium: Voices from the American West in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.