Experiencing Lamott's world

By Natalie Calderon

Anyone familiar with me knows there are certain things I like a lot. Food, for example, is one. Music is another. But one thing I like even more than food or music is the writer Anne Lamott.

I know saying I like Anne Lamott more than food or music is a risky statement, but let me explain. What I mean is I would choose to skip a meal and go the entire day without listening to music if it meant I could meet Anne Lamott.

When I was a sophomore, I took a fiction writing class in which Lamott and I were first introduced. I read an excerpt from her book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life in my fiction writing textbook called "Shitty First Drafts."

"The first draft is the child's draft," Lamott writes, "...you just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page. If one of the characters wants to say, 'Well, so what Mr. Poopy Pants?,' you let her."

Ha! She's hilarious. She's brilliant, I thought. I mentioned in class the next day that I loved her dry humor and wanted to read everything she had ever written. Someone told me she had a copy of one of Lamott's books that I could borrow. I was thrilled.

Operating Instructions became the first book that I read. It's a journal that chronicles the last few months of her pregnancy and the entire first year of her son's life, in which she uniquely expresses the witty sarcasm and flawless writing style that make her so great.

I realized, as I read Operating Instructions, that Lamott's style had everything I wanted as a writer. Is that why I liked her so much? Well, its one of the reasons. The other is that writing non-fiction makes you vulnerable to weirdos who think, after reading it, that they know the author personally - and that they should be best friends.

After Operating Instructions, I read everything I could get my hands on (Rosie, Crooked Little Heart, All New People, Hard Laughter). Then Traveling Mercies, a masterful work of excellence. It was happy, sad, funny, honest, clever - everything I knew it would be.

Soon after I discovered Lamott, she appeared on the Rosie show to promote Traveling Mercies. It was fate. I read it like the comic section of the Sunday paper. And I knew, from that point on, I would never again stare blankly and shrug my shoulders when asked, "Who's your favorite author?"

I would be able to answer that question with ease, a smile spreading across my face as I said, "Not only is Anne Lamott my favorite author - she's also my best friend."

You can do anything - take a look, it's in a book.