Author Anne Lamott spoke at St. Edward’s University as a part of the Visiting Writers Series last weekend about parenting, her writing career and her most recently published novel “Imperfect Birds.”

Lamott has written 15 fiction and non-fiction books, including New York Times bestsellers “Grace (Eventually)” and “Plan B.” She has also appeared on Stephen Colbert’s “The Colbert Report.”

The event was held in the Mabee Ballroom in the Ragsdale Center on April 9. It was hosted by St. Edward’s in collaboration with the independent bookstore BookPeople.

While attendance was free for St. Edward’s students and staff, tickets were $16.50 for non-St. Edward’s attendees. Those who paid for admission also received a paperback copy of Lamott’s “Imperfect Birds.”

Professor Carrie Fountain worked with BookPeople to bring Lamott to St. Edward’s.

“BookPeople approached us because I think they wanted a bigger venue than they were able to offer. Anne Lamott was also interested in working with a smaller college,” Fountain said.

Fountain gave the introduction speech. She mentioned that she reads a chapter of Lamott’s nonfiction book “Bird by Bird” with her Rhetoric and Composition classes.

During her introduction speech, Fountain also told the audience that Lamott’s birthday was the next day and presented Lamott with a cupcake from Quacks 43rd Street Bakery. The audience sang “Happy Birthday” to Lamott before the scheduled reading.

Lamott, a woman with tidy, shoulder-length dreadlocks, introduced herself while licking frosting from her fingers. She gave the audience the option to vote on how the event should proceed.

“How many people want me to do the reading I’ve done six nights in a row?” Lamott asked, prompting laughs from the audience.

After only one person raised her hand, Lamott decided to begin the event with a spontaneous question-and-answer session and end with a short reading. She warned the audience that there would only be time for a few questions as a result of her chattiness.

“How have you learned to let go of your son?” an audience member asked, referring to Lamott’s 21-year-old son, Sam.

Lamott responded with a 20-minute answer. She said finding a community of people to relate to both for her son and her was a major part of the process of letting go.

“Yeah, I have children – me too. Hold on, I need to go get my tubes tied,” Lamott said, joking about finding other parents to relate to. “If you’ve been an effective parent, you’re raising your child to let go.”

After Lamott finished talking about parenting, another audience member asked Lamott to talk about her writing.

“I think the greatest thing in the world is to find people to say ‘oh, me too,'” Lamott said, referring back to finding people to relate to. ‘Me too’ was Lamott’s most-used phrase of the night.

Lamott said she often bases characters in her fiction novels on people she knows, and not one person has approached her to say they recognized themselves in any of the characters in her novels.

“The only thing you have to write about is what you know,” she said.

Lamott said she based one fictional character in her novels off of a person she referred to as “the world’s most negative person.”

“We could walk outside and say, ‘oh, what a beautiful day it is,’ and she would be in the back saying ‘melanoma,'” Lamott said about the character she created.

Though she does create fictional characters based off of friends or acquaintances, Lamott said she never discloses secrets in her writing, whether fiction or non-fiction.

“By the time I tell something, I know it’s universal,” Lamott said in regards to writing about personal experiences and family members.

After the question-and-answer session, Lamott read a few short passages from “Imperfect Birds.”

A San Francisco, Calif., native, Lamott currently lives in Marin County, which she uses as the setting for many of her fiction and nonfiction books, including “Imperfect Birds.”