Anne Lamott Returns With a New Writing Playbook, This Time With Her ‘Current Husband’

anne lamott is back in the writing conversation again, this time in a fresh, tightly focused collaboration with her husband and co-author Neal Allen. The new book, “Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences, ” is framed as a practical guide built around 36 rules meant to strengthen the building blocks of writing, chapter by chapter. The project puts their partnership on the page, with Allen’s rules and Lamott’s running commentary presented as a shared manual for craft.

What’s new: “Good Writing” puts the sentence first

The new release is “Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences, ” credited to Neal Allen and Anne Lamott, and described as a sharply specific counterpart to the looser, more meandering feel associated with “Bird by Bird. ” Allen’s approach is clear and repeated in the material tied to the book: “My job is the sentence, ” he writes, positioning sentence-level work as the central discipline.

The structure is deliberately methodical. There are 36 chapters, one for each rule, and each chapter includes a dedicated section labeled “Anne’s take, ” where Lamott adds her perspective, expands on the advice, and at times challenges Allen’s framing. The result is presented as a practical, craft-forward guide shaped by two working writers in conversation.

Inside the partnership: “Mr. Anne Lamott, ” “current husband, ” and a shared craft

The collaboration arrives after years of the couple’s personal partnership. In descriptions tied to the book and their joint appearances, Allen is portrayed as a father of four whose career path has moved from newspaper reporter to corporate executive to spiritual coach and author of spiritual guidebooks. Lamott publicly refers to Allen as her “current husband, ” while Allen calls Lamott his “remarkable and beautiful partner” and refers to himself as “Mr. Anne Lamott. ”

Their creative division of labor is also spelled out: Allen compiled and shaped the 36 rules over the span of his career, and Lamott—who uses the rules in her own work—encouraged him to turn the advice into a book and then proposed annotating what he wrote. That decision becomes the engine of the book’s format: his rule, her take, and both voices carried through every chapter.

Why readers are paying attention again: “Bird by Bird” still reverberates

Lamott’s influence is underscored by the long tail of “Bird by Bird, ” her 1994 writing handbook that remains widely referenced. The book has sold more than 1 million copies and continues to sell approximately 40, 000 copies each year. The phrase “bird by bird” has also turned into a cultural shorthand, with one cited example appearing in “Ted Lasso, ” and another appearing in a Gloria Steinem interview in Cosmopolitan.

Several prominent writers have tied their own work and motivation to Lamott’s earlier handbook. Harlan Coben has called “Bird by Bird” his “favorite writing manual, ” saying, “I use it like a coach’s halftime speech to get me fired up to write. ” Elizabeth Gilbert has previously described herself as Lamott’s “literary offspring. ” Paula McLain has said she returns to the book “again and again” because Lamott is frank about how hard writing is, while still finding humor in it. Best-selling memoirist and novelist Dani Shapiro has also stressed the book’s staying power, saying, “A writer is always a beginner, ” and calling “Bird by Bird” a singular companion for that reality.

That legacy sets the stage for the new release: a book positioned not as a replacement for “Bird by Bird, ” but as a companion aimed at sentence-level improvement with a clear, repeated set of rules.

What’s next: where this collaboration goes from here

For now, the immediate focus is the book’s shared framework: 36 rules, 36 chapters, and “Anne’s take” threaded throughout as a second voice that both supports and tests the guidance. In the weeks ahead, the central question for readers will be how effectively this rule-based structure translates into daily practice—especially for writers who already treat Lamott’s earlier work as a go-to reference point.

And as “Good Writing” moves through the writing world, the collaboration itself remains the headline: a two-person craft conversation made public, with anne lamott once again at the center of how people talk about learning to write better.