Neal Allen and Anne Lamott — Good Writing
Anne Lamott and writing teacher Neal Allen discuss the craft of good writing — its mechanics, its emotional truth, and what makes prose come alive.
Why we picked this
Anne Lamott wrote the book on writing (literally — Bird by Bird remains the standard), and this conversation with Neal Allen promises a rare look at the mechanics and emotional architecture of good prose.
Anne Lamott, whose Bird by Bird has been a touchstone for writers for three decades, joins writing teacher Neal Allen for an evening dedicated to the craft of good writing at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC.
This is not a workshop or a how-to session. It is a conversation between two people who care deeply about what makes prose work — the mechanics of a sentence, the emotional truth underneath it, and the mysterious quality that makes certain writing feel alive on the page.
Presented by Politics and Prose, the evening is ticketed and held off-site at Sidwell Friends. For anyone who has ever struggled with a blank page or wondered why some writing moves us and other writing doesn’t, this is an evening worth the trip.