I’ve been a huge fan of Anne Lamott for years. I buy her books in hardcover.   Her writing has an ease that I have long admired.

Whenever I’m feeling stuck, straining my literary voice, I reach for Anne Lamott.  I don’t reach for Bird by Bird, even though her ode to shitty first drafts is a classic.  Most recently, I have been re-reading Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith.

It is a wry, witty book that examines some of life’s most painful and serious subjects—friends with terminal illness, politics, women and their bodies, deciphering adolescence, and the rough patches in faith.

More than just the subject matter draws me.

Anne Lamott is both a readers’ writer and a writer’s writer.

Her evocative and lyrical prose creates a deeply satisfying reading experience.  I conjure pictures and images with ease.  I can literally see what she’s written.

Short pieces require focus and a clarity that is hard to pull off.  Writing long is usually easier because the writer forces herself to make fewer choices.  Short pieces require a writer, by nature a lover of words, to be demanding and exacting.  A writer of good short pieces can’t love the words more than the story.  Words must serve the story, not vice versa.

Chapter after chapter, Lamott pulls off this feat with real elegance.  This is not a craft trick, or a technical compliment I am paying Lamott (although I’m sure she deserves both.)  No, this is the mark of a writer who has settled into her voice and into her rhythm.

Reading Anne Lamott shows me something new about writing every time I read her.  Hers is work that I return to, over and over again.

Anne Lamott puts heat on every page.  More than that, she modulates the flame.  She’s a real pro, and I love her for it.

So when I’m stuck, I pick up Grace, and Lamott guides me back to the heat every time.