Annabelle Gurwitch

A New York Times Bestselling author, actress and activist

ANNABELLE GURWITCH is a New York Times Bestselling author, actress and activist whose most recent book, You're Leaving When? was a 2021 New York Times Favorite Book for Healthy Living and a finalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor Writing 2022.

Her essays and satire appear in The New Yorker, New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal amongst other publications. Her five books include the New York Times bestseller and Thurber Prize finalist I See You Made an Effort.  During her acting career, Annabelle was a popular television host and actress with long running series on TBS, The Discovery Channel, and HBO. 

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's given patient advocate talks around the globe, including Vienna, Rome, Singapore, Tampa, Los Angeles, Charlotte, and New York.  She was awarded the Patient Advocate Award at the 2023 World Conference of the International Association of the Study of Lung Cancer. She serves on the editorial board of ASCO's cancer.net, and is currently working on a project addressing inequities in biomarker testing in rural America in partnership with the LUNGevity Foundation.  

She is currently writing a Hallmark Channel TV movie, Friends for Life, starring Andie MacDowell based on her book, You’re Leaving When?

     Annabelle is a volunteer with The Campfire Project, an arts based social and emotional healing curriculum developed for youth in refugee spaces, she mentors students at her local high school, and hikes the trails near her home in Los Angeles which she shares with her boyfriend, two cats, and a boatload of pharmaceuticals.