Annabelle Gurwitch

New York Times Bestselling Author | Two-time Thurber Prize Finalist | Actress | Activist

Annabelle is a multifaceted speaker who has spoken across the globe on a wide range of topics. She is a favorite with women's groups with speeches on resilience, empowerment, and community that are as inspiring as they are comical. She is featured in the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience and speaks to Jewish organizations across the country. Most recently, she has become sought after by medical, pharmaceutical, and patient advocacy groups, since chronicling living with stage 4 lung cancer after a surprise diagnosis. Her repertoire includes this extraordinary array of themes all delivered with her special brand of wit, humor, integrity, and grace.

Book Annabelle

IASLC SINGAPORE 2023

IASLC VIENNA 2022

INSIDE THE ISSUES WITH ALEX COHEN

JEWISH FEDERATION

Annabelle Gurwitch is a New York Times bestselling author, actress and activist whose most recent collection of essays "You're Leaving When? Adventures in Downward Mobility" is a 2021 New York Times Favorite Book for Healthy Living, a Good Morning America Must Read and a finalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor Writing 2022.
Her writing appears in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New Yorker and Hadassah Magazine, amongst other publications. Time Magazine featured Annabelle in their “Ten Ideas that are Changing the World” annual series. She has been featured on The Today Show, Good Morning America, Real Time with Bill Maher, PBS Newshour, Oprah, CBS Early Show, with Anderson Cooper on CNN and MSNBC news programs.

Annabelle was the longtime cohost of the fan favorite "Dinner & a Movie" on TBS and a regular commentator on NPR. She's performed on the Moth Mainstage, at Carolines on Broadway, and at arts centers around the country. Her acting credits include: Seinfeld, Dexter, Better Things, and Murphy Brown.

Annabelle has been chronicling living with stage iv lung cancer and inequities in healthcare in the New York Times and Washington Post since her out-of-the-blue diagnosis during covid. She has given patient advocate talks at scientific conferences around the globe including: Vienna, Rome, and Brisbane and was honored with The Patient Advocate Award at the IASLC Conference in Singapore 2023. Her forthcoming book, My Year of Yeesh, details, in response to her cancer diagnosis, her attempts at adopting an "I'm in" frame of mind, when "I'm out" was clearly the logical response. The book illustrates what happens when the curmudgeonly embraces (almost) everything that comes her way. My Year of Yeesh publishes fall 2025. Annabelle, co-hosted the podcast, "Tiny Victories," dedicated to appreciating small mercies and minor triumphs on the Maximum Fun Podcast Network.

Speech Topics

compassion, Coffee, and Carpe Deim WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT LIVING WITH CANCER

Annabelle speaks on cultivating resilience and resolve since her stunning stage iv out-of -the- blue cancer diagnosis during the height of covid, a journey she’s chronicled in widely acclaimed pieces in the New York Times, Washington Post, and interviews on NPR and GMA, tailoring her remarks to people whose lives have been impacted by serious diseases and their caregivers, medical practitioners, patient advocacy non-profits, researchers, and bio tech professionals.

Her talk weaves serious topics, from bridging inequities in care, biomarker testing and treatment related survivorship issues, to her buoyant humor on the unexpected disappearance of her fingerprints and a fantasy of a foray into art theft and how cancer is her bad boyfriend and she's cheating on him with "joy" with her accidentally falling in love while in treatment. Annabelle's talk channels her inspiring, indefatigable and infectious, the good kind, joie de vivre.
Annabelle has given this talk for groups including the Akoya Biosciences Annual Global Sales Meeting in Los Angeles, Multi-Omics in Brisbane, Australia, Florida Lung Health Symposium in conjunction with the Cancer Moonshot Initiative in Tampa, Florida, and at the World Conference on Lung Cancer in Vienna. Annabelle was honored with The Patient Advocate Award at the IASLC Conference in Singapore 2023.

Welcoming the Stranger How JEWISH VALUES INFORM MY LIFE

Annabelle Gurwitch speaks on the ways her reform Jewish background has influenced her as a mother, a writer, and her dedication to tikkun olam. Her talk references how her family's immigrant experience, Jewish humor, and her grandmother’s leaden matzo ball soup shape her values at events honoring philanthropists, celebrating Jewish literature and the women who lead our communities.

Annabelle just returned from volunteering in an arts education program for refugee children in Northern Uganda, a program sponsored by IsraAid, the humanitarian NGO based in Tel Aviv and The Campfire Project, founded by Jewish American Broadway star Jessica Hecht.

At the heart of her most recent book is the concept of Pirkei Avot which guided her transformative experience of being the 7th person in L.A. to open her home to youth experiencing homelessness. Her speech includes hilarious accounts of attending a “Sedar Over the Rainbow” where the cantor was costumed as the Cowardly Lion, assuming the mantle of family elder, what being a Jewish mother taught her about supporting her non-binary child, witnessing and writing about the first Bat Mitzvah in an American prison for the JTA, and attending the annual Jewish single's MatzohBall.

Annabelle, who hails from Mobile, Alabama, is featured in the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in New Orleans, where she never says no to a bagel beignet.

Annabelle has given this talk for the Women of Valor Metro JCC Luncheon, UJA Long Island, Marin County Jewish Women Chai Luncheon Speaker, San Gabriel Valley Federation, Cis Maisel Center for Judaic Studies, U of Michigan, and Charlotte Federation, amongst other groups.

, “Annabelle Gurwitch was the keynote speaker at Multi-Omics 2022 in Brisbane, Australia. Annabelle gave a moving reflection of health and disease, peppered with doses of comedic relief – truly a blessed orator, she energized and inspired our group of scientists and researchers.”

— Arutha Kulasinghe
co-director Multi-Omics 2022

Previous Engagements

92nd Street Y
The New York and Aspen Comedy Festivals
Google Talks
South by SouthWest
The Carter Center
IASLC World Conference on Lung Cancer 2022 Vienna
Multi-Omics Conference 2022 Brisbane
Akoya Biosciences Global Sales Meeting 2023
Lung Cancer Research Foundation
UCLA Fielding School of Public Health
Artist in Residence at Canyon Ranch Tucson
Jewish Book Council Tour
Erma Bombeck Writers Conference

Books

My Year of Yeesh: A Skeptic Slouches Toward Joy

My Year of Yeesh illustrates what happens when the most curmudgeonly embraces (almost) everything that comes her way. Never a "yes" person she adopts a skeptical yes, a "yeesh" attitude and her adventures begin. With imperfect methods and many comical missteps, Annabelle chronicles her discoveries along the way, from appreciating the ordinary, to the gift of indifference, to her more accurate lesser know translation of carpe diem "pluck the day". It’s a kinder and gentler approach to living and reviving your spirit. It also sounds a lot like “fuck the day,” and I’m good with that too. Readers will find insight and take heart from what Annabelle discovers are essential to rekindling joie de vivre and cultivating resilience on the heels of her cancer diagnosis.

"Annabelle Gurwitch is so funny that when bad things happen, she writes about them in a brilliantly entertaining way." –Dave Barry

You're Leaving When? Adventures in Downward Mobility

With signature “sharp wit” (NPR), Annabelle Gurwitch gives irreverent and empathetic voice to a generation hurtling into their next chapter with no safety net and proves that our no-frills new normal doesn’t mean a deficit of humor. You're Leaving When? is for anybody who thought they had a semblance of security but wound up with a fragile economy and a blankie. Gurwitch offers stories of resilience, adaptability, low-rent redemption, and the kindness of strangers. Even in a muted Zoom.

“In this surprisingly upbeat memoir, Annabelle Gurwitch writes about the financial curveballs that can hit you in midlife . . . Somehow, Ms. Gurwitch manages to find humor in these setbacks. Ultimately, this is a story about harnessing resilience and learning how life’s disappointments can teach you about the things that matter most." –Tara Parker-Pope, The New York Times

I See You Made an Effort: Compliments, Indignities, and Survival Stories from the Edge of 50

Actor and humorist Annabelle Gurwitch returns with a wickedly funny book of essays about the indignities faced by femmes d’un certain âge. Whether she is falling in lust at the Genius Bar, coping with her best friend’s assisted suicide, or navigating the extensive—and treacherously expensive—anti-aging offerings at the beauty counter, Gurwitch confronts middle age with candor, wit, and a healthy dose of self-deprecation. Scorchingly honest, surreally and riotously funny, I See You Made an Effort is the ultimate coming-of-middle-age story.

“Annabelle Gurwitch is a funny woman….At the center of the book is a serious question: How are we supposed to age? She convincingly argues that there is no longer a template.” --Judith Newman, The New York Times

Wherever You Go: There They Are: Stories About My Family You Might Relate To

When Annabelle Gurwitch was a child, surrounded by a cast of epically dysfunctional relatives, she secretly prayed that it was all a terrible mistake. Maybe she was a long-lost daughter of Joni Mitchell or the reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian princess. A family of bootleggers, gamblers, and philanderers, the Gurwitches have always been a bit vague on the ideal of a loving and supportive family. If she’s learned anything, it’s that no matter how hard you try to escape a crazy family, you just end up in another crazy family.

"In Wherever You Go, There They Are Annabelle Gurwitch takes inspiration from her own life to examine that most horrible of all human conditions: family. She makes a compelling case for community, while arguing for a definition that eschews tribalism. This hilarious and insightful book reminds me why I'm so, so happy that I didn't have children!” –Bill Maher

You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up: A Love Story

After thirteen years of being married, Annabelle and Jeff have found “We’re just not that into us.” Instead of giving up, they’ve held their relationship together by ignoring conventional wisdom and fostering a lack of intimacy, by using parenting as a competitive sport, and by dropping out of couples therapy. Serving up equal parts sincerity and cynicism, You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up is a laugh-out-loud must-read for everyone who has come to realize that being “in love” can only get you so far.
"Laugh out loud"
--People Magazine

Fired! Tales of the Canned, Canceled, Downsized, & Dismissed

If you've ever been fired, you're in good company. That's what actress and writer Annabelle Gurwitch discovered when she was fired by her idol Woody Allen ("You look retarded"). She confided her tale of woe to her friend Felicity Huffman, who made Annabelle laugh with her own stories. Annabelle realized that there was a world of people out there waiting to laugh at the experience that virtually everyone shares, and she began to collect stories of being fired from friends and colleagues.

“Been canned lately? Take solace from others who’ve been there in Fired!” --New York Post–#1 on the Hot list

YOUR CART