A BBC News story titled Chaos, upheaval and exhaustion for Ukraine’s disabled children caught my attention earlier this week. The piece was written by Fergal Keane, a BBC News reporter who rode with a bus full of children with disabilities and their caregivers escaping Kharkiv to safety in Poland. The city of Kharkiv was one […]

Sunday night we had a dinner party. Let’s say that again: Sunday night we had a dinner party! It wasn’t the very first time we’ve had people over since Covid has quieted—but it was the most pre-covid normal. This time we weren’t wary and self-conscious—we were celebratory. I did forget how exhausting it can be […]

When the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) selected Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound as the winner of its Henry Bergh Children’s Book Award back in 2008, my sisters accompanied my second Seeing Eye dog Hanni and me to the American Library Association convention in Anaheim to receive the award. […]

Apologies for dereliction of blog duties the past few weeks. To be honest, I’ve just felt a little empty, with nothing to say. Don’t worry, not that empty. I’m not despondent and no more or less anxious about the state of things than usual. In most ways, my life is as good as it’s ever […]

It was a Friday night in the fall of 1977. I was a junior in the journalism program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Earlier, I’d gotten an essay exam back during one of my hardest—and favorite classes. I aced it. So, that afternoon, off I went to happy hour at a campustown joint […]