Adair Lara started her career writing for local magazines--first at San Francisco Focus, the city magazine, and then at SF, a design magazine at which she passed herself off as someone passionately interested in interior design. She wrote freelance humor pieces for the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday section, and in 1989 they invited her to join the staff and write a regular column of my own. The newspaper was famed then for its columnists, which include Pulitzer Prize winners Stanton Delaplane, Charles McCabe, and Herb Caen. She has published some ten books or so, including several collections of columns (for more information, go to http://www.adairlara.com). Her essays have been anthologized upwards of fifty times.

She has won a wide range of awards including:

* 1990: Associated Press, Best Columnist in California.

* 1997: Humor Columns for Newspapers over 100,000, National Society of Newspaper Columnists

* 1998: First place, general interest columns, National Society of Newspaper Columnists.

* 1999: Second place, commentary, American Association of Sunday and Feature editors contest, competing against papers with circulation over 300,000.

* May 17, 2002 was declared Adair Lara Day in San Francisco by proclamation of Mayor Willie Brown

Published books include:

* Naked, Drunk, and Writing (Ten Speed Press, 2010)

* The Granny Diaries (Chronicle Books, 2008)

* The Bigger the Sign, the Worse the Garage Sale (Chronicle Books, 2007)

* You Know You're A Writer When (Chronicle Books, 2007)

* Oopise! Ouchie! (Chronicle Books, 2004) - a board book for kids

* Normal is Just a Setting on the Dryer Chronicle Books (2003)

* Hanging out the Wash (Redwheelweiser, 2002) - sold 11,043 copies

* Slowing Down in a Speeded-Up World (Redwheelweiser, 2002) - sold 18,061 copies

* Hold Me Close, Let Me Go (Broadway Books, 2001) - sold 22,000 copies in hardcover and paperback

* The Best of Adair Lara (Scottwall Associates, 1999) - sold 19,500 copies

* At Adair's House (Chronicle Books, 1995)

* Welcome to Earth, Mom (Chronicle Books, 1992)

Praise for Hold Me Close, Let Me Go

The thrilling level of honesty and discovery burned into every line of Hold Me Close, Let Me Go is something that rarely informs a memoir of any kind. In this case, Adair Lara has transcended the genre of self to achieve selflessness. Her story of her struggle, the mistakes, the triumphs, the abiding love and pure anguish to save her brilliant and self-destructive daughter is a must read for anyone who loves a child, or ever hopes to love a child. Not every child will follow Morgan's stormy passage to redemption, but many will, and for any parent, Lara's book will be a beacon.

--Jacqueline Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean