This week I asked writers in my memoir classes to put together 500-word essays about the best thing they ever bought, borrowed or stole. Essays came back about a yoyo, a wedding dress, college educations, a maternity dress, a black walnut dining table, condos with lake views, a black leather jacket, artwork, a stylish mmauve […]

When I assigned “Spirits” as a writing prompt over the Halloween weekend, I expected the writers in my memoir classes to come back with stories of living in houses that were haunted, going to psychics, reading Tarot Cards, seeing ghosts or visits from the “other side.” Instead, I heard essays about team spirit, kindred spirits, […]

When I fell a couple winters ago and broke some fingers in my left hand, I started toying around with a dictation feature on the iPhone. The microphone next to the space bar on the keyboard is far more accurate than Siri, and last month I showed an 80-year-old writer in one of the memoir-writing […]

Whitney and I gave a presentation at Bethany Retirement Community yesterday. Bethany sponsors a weekly memoir-writing class for residents there, and yesterday’s event began with a lovely reading of short pieces six of the writers in their class had written. Each participant had provided photos. While staff members read the essays aloud, the photos that […]

Whitney and I took a commuter train to Deerfield, Illinois yesterday to talk with third graders at Wilmot Elementary about what it’s like to be blind and get around with a Seeing Eye dog. I started our presentation to the eight- and nine-year-olds explaining three rules to keep in mind if they happen to see […]