During the presentations I’ve been doing about Writing Out Loud I am often asked where I come up with the prompts I use in our memoir-writing classes. My answer? “All over the place!” Here’s an example. After Sam Shepherd died a few weeks ago I listened to a 1998 interview Terry Gross did with him […]

Here’s a piece Ninety-five-year-old Wanda Bridgeforth wrote after her WGN Radio interview last weekend. Remembering DuSable by Wanda Bridgeforth The interview with Dave Hoekstra and Beth Finke brought back more memories of my happy days at DuSable High School. On February 1, 1935, it was a thrill to be entering a Brand-New building at the […]

Al Hippensteel is the editor of The Dearborn Express, our free neighborhood newspaper, and he’s in the memoir-writing class I lead in Printers Row, too. Before class one day Al asked if anyone might be interested in writing book reviews for the paper, and his fellow memoir-writer Lorraine Schmall jumped at the chance. Her latest […]

Two of the “What My Parents Believed” essays read out loud at our Printers Row memoir class last week seemed perfect for a Fourth of July post, and writers Robert and Maggy generously agreed to let me share excerpts from each of their essays here. Three cheers for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Robert’s […]

In addition to leading weekly memoir-writing classes for older adults, I work part-time moderating a blog for Easterseals National Headquarters here in Chicago. For the past couple of weeks we’ve been publishing posts on the Easterseals blog written by people with disabilities who count on Medicaid to help them pay for everything from personal care […]