Writer leans on her family for fodder

When Annabelle Gurwitch learned that the boyhood home of writer/cartoonist James Thurber has an apartment just waiting for visiting authors, she said, “I invited myself to stay there.”

And Thurber House officials were happy to oblige the 2015 finalist for the Thurber Prize, which honors humor writing. Gurwitch will appear Friday for the Evenings With Authors series and, the previous evening, will lead a writing class (whose registration deadline is today).

“I’m so excited, I may never leave,” she said.

The 55-year-old humorist recently released her newest collection of essays, “Wherever You Go, There They Are” — funny and poignant musings on her wacky family as well as friends and associates who double as family.

Gurwitch grew up Jewish in Mobile, Alabama, and Miami, Florida, before moving to New York to begin acting. She has appeared in a number of film and TV roles, including a stint on the HBO series “Not Necessarily the News.”

She was nominated for the Thurber Prize for her essay collection “I See You Made an Effort.”

Today, the Los Angeles resident describes herself as a Jewish mother, reluctant atheist and ardent environmentalist. She spoke recently by phone with The Dispatch.

Your family is eccentric, to say the least. Are the stories in “Wherever You Go ...” embellished?

Not embellished at all. I guess I just lived with my family for so long I didn’t realize they were so crazy.

Your father, who was quite a schemer, died, as you wrote in the book’s last essay. Is your mother, who was suffering cancer, still around?

Believe it or not, my mother died on the day of my dad’s memorial. ... The reason I wanted to write about (failing parents) was I think it is a passage we all go through. It’s funny and tragic at the same time. I hope when people read it and have been through it, they’ll find some solace in it.

Growing up Jewish in the South must have been something like a cauldron.

One of the reasons I wanted to write the book was to talk about that “otherization.” Growing up in Mobile, what it meant for my family was that we became a or Dispatch. ghetto mentality where you hang together. Jewish immigrants who went to the South — I think they held on to their identity much longer because they were just so different from others in the South. Except keeping kosher in the South — well, you can’t do it with all the oysters and shrimps. Every time she ate an oyster, my grandmother would say, “Oh God, forgive me” — so you can imagine how long dinner would take. ... As second-generation myself, telling my story is a reminder to all of us of our immigrant roots.

What’s your secret to writing humor?

I look for a premise. ... One of my stories is about people who believe pets are their family. One of my friends showed up at dinner with her dog dressed just like her. She had the dog in a baby sling. She set that dog at a place setting at the table with my grandmother’s fine china. You can’t make these things up.

You were a finalist for the 2015 Thurber Prize along with Roz Chast and Julie Schumacher, who won the