food.wikisort.org - Researcher

Anna Thomas (born July 12, 1948) is a German-born American author, screenwriter, and film producer. She is best known as the author of the 1972 vegetarian cookbook, The Vegetarian Epicure, which contributed to the rise of the vegetarian movement of the 1970s. She is currently Discipline Head of the Screenwriting department at the American Film Institute.

Anna Thomas
Born	(1948-07-12) July 12, 1948 (age 74) Stuttgart, Germany
Occupation	Screenwriter film producer Cookbook author
Notable work	The Vegetarian Epicure (1972)

Education

While at the film school at UCLA Thomas wrote, produced and directed her master's thesis film, a dramatic feature titled The Haunting of M, a turn of the century ghost story, shot in Scotland. It was well received by film critics and shown at festivals and art houses.[1]

The Vegetarian Epicure

She wrote her first cookbook The Vegetarian Epicure (1972) while still a film student at UCLA. It had a strong impact on the natural foods movement within the American counterculture.[2][3] As noted in The Roanoke Times, "for many of the young people turning to vegetarianism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Anna Thomas was the guru in their kitchens."[4] Thomas later said that while she was a student at UCLA, she "wasn't eating much meat," and thus was focusing on vegetarian cooking. However, she states that there "weren't any good vegetarian cookbooks then. So I was just making things up in 1968 and '69, and somebody said, `Gee, Anna, you're such a good cook, you should write a cookbook.' And when you are 19 or 20 you say, `Yeah, OK, I think I will,' and then you do."[5] The success of the book was due to the fact that it turned away from the ascetic approach found in American vegetarian cookbooks,[5] and its ability to introduce pleasure to American vegetarian meals.[6][7]

Additional cookbooks

Thomas has also published four additional cookbooks. Her next two books were also vegetarian: The Vegetarian Epicure, Book Two (1978) and The New Vegetarian Epicure (1996). However, her final two books included a mix of vegetarian and vegan recipes: Love Soup, and the Vegan Vegetarian Omnivore (which also included meat-based dishes).[8][9]

Film work

In 1973, Thomas worked with fellow film student Gregory Nava on his master's thesis film, a dramatic feature set in the Middle Ages, The Confessions of Amans. It was the beginning of a writing collaboration that has spanned more than two decades.

In 1984, Thomas co-wrote and produced El Norte with Nava directing. The film was a critical success. Thomas and Nava were nominated for an Academy Award and the film collected honors at various film festivals. In 1995, it was elected to the National Film Registry for the Library of Congress.

Thomas produced A Time of Destiny for Columbia Pictures in 1988 and worked for the studio on a few writing jobs.

She returned to the independent film world in 1995 with My Family, a multi-generational Mexican-American family story set in East Los Angeles which Thomas co-wrote and produced.

Today

Thomas lives in Ojai, California and Los Angeles, where she continues to write screenplays and other fiction. She is the Screenwriting Discipline head at the American Film Institute.[10]

Cookbooks

Vegetarian

• The Vegetarian Epicure Alfred A. Knopf, 1972, 305 pages. ISBN 0-394-71784-8.
• The Vegetarian Epicure, Book Two Alfred A. Knopf, 1978, 401 pages. ISBN 0-394-73415-7.
• The New Vegetarian Epicure Alfred A. Knopf, 1996, 450 pages. ISBN 0-679-76588-3.

Vegetarian and Vegan

• Love Soup W. W. Norton & Company, 2009, 528 pages. ISBN 978-0-393-33257-5.
• Vegan Vegetarian Omnivore: Dinner for Everyone at the Table. W. W. Norton & Company, 2016, 496 pages. ISBN 978-0393083019.

Screenwriting filmography

• The Confessions of Amans (1977)
• The Haunting of M (1981), also produced
• The End of August (1982)
• El Norte (1983), also produced
• A Time of Destiny (1988), also produced
• My Family/Mi Familia (1995), also produced
• Frida (2002)

Awards and nominations

Nominated

• Academy Awards: Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, for El Norte (1983).[11]
• Writers Guild of America: Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, for El Norte (1983).[11]

Won

• James Beard Foundation Award: Best Healthy Focus Cookbook, for Love Soup (2010).[12]

References

External links

• Official website
• Anna Thomas at IMDb
• Anna Thomas at AllMovie

---