I posted about the movie “Green Book” awhile back. I liked the movie then, and I like it now. Whatever you think about the movie, I think there is one inarguably good thing about it: A ton of people who knew nothing about the Green Book before the movie now do know about it. I’m […]

I’m pleased to have Regan Burke back as a guest blogger today. She’s been a member of many of my classes over the years (Regan is featured in “Writing Out Loud”) and maintains her own blog, Backstory Essays, and she’s been published in The Christian Science Monitor and a variety of other publications. It’s the […]

This is a pretty significant Monday here in Chicago. First, the week began with my fair city winning a dubious honor: A study done at the University of Illinois-Chicago found the Chicago metro area to be the most corrupt in the nation. (Again.) That state of Illinois has some catching up to do: The UIC […]

  On December 23, 1983, I gifted Beth an elegant three-speed Peugeot bicycle, replete with nifty folding baskets, for her birthday. And then I gifted me by asking her to marry me. She said yes. The next day, the low temperature in Chicago was -25, the high was -11. That’s temperature, not wind chill. The […]

A good friend of my sister Cheryl in Anacortes, Washington is in a book club, and on Monday afternoon I attended as a guest author. When one of the members said she loved how much Writing Out Loud taught her about Chicago, her fellow members swelled up in a chorus of uh-huhs and yeses. The reaction […]