Good news! I’ve been invited to give an Author Night Presentation about Writing Out Loud at Max and Benny’s Deli Restaurant in Northbrook! Even better news: the event is free, all you need to do is register. When: September 16th, 2019 7 pm – 8:30 pm Where: Max and Benny’s Restaurant, Deli and Bakery 461 […]

When I heard that yesterday was the 90th anniversary of the Bud Billiken Parade in Chicago, I called Wanda Bridgeforth. Sure enough, she was in the parade a few years after it first started. “Oh, yes-in-deedy, I was 11 or so, and we were the Young Girls Athletic Club of Bud Billiken,” she said. “We […]

After we published Mike’s thoughtful post about my Seeing Eye dog Whitney’s upcoming retirement, caring friends and family have been asking if I know what breed my next dog will be. Do I know the name of my next dog, Will they tell you if it’s going to be a male or female? Hearing myself […]

Hey, did you read that piece Chicago Tribune columnist Heidi Stevens wrote last month about the memoir-writing classes I lead in Chicago? It’s the most well-written and accurate piece any journalist has ever published about how I got started teaching memoir-writing and why I love my classes so much. Bonus: I hear the photos are […]

As writers in the memoir classes I lead master the art of writing about their lives, they find themselves with a new challenge: assembling finished stories into book form. Many of my students have met that challenge. Some collected their essays into self-published books for their families, a few worked with an online company called […]