I’ve been writing without vision for more than 25 years. Next month, at Northwestern University’s Summer Writers’ Conference, I’m going to try teaching people who can see how to do it, too: Smelling is Believing: Using Your Other Senses — Beth Finke Writer Beth Finke is blind, and her in-class exercises encourage writers to set […]

Here’s my husband Mike with a guest post for Father’s Day. My mom was combative, politically opinionated, a 5′ 1″ ball of fire. My dad? Polar opposite. He had a quiet power. As a child, I’d watch the clock. Every single day, he’d pull up the driveway at 5:00 in his ratty car–he always got […]

My friend Lynn LaPlante-Allaway is a professional musician, and earlier this month she sent this email with an offer I couldn’t refuse: I will be downtown for a rehearsal, would you like me to come by and play my violin for you? I will sit quietly in the corner and play and all you do […]

Hi, My husband Mike’s giving me a blog break again. Here’s his latest: Today Beth had her first followup visit with one of the cardiologists who treated her the morning of her emergency surgery. Three notes about our time with Dr. Ranya Sweis today: She’s the best cardiologist in the world in my book, not to […]

Listening to Mike read all your loving and glowing blog comments out loud to me in my hospital room over the past week sometimes gave me the feeling I was attending my own funeral. Doctors did have to shock my heart back to work last Thursday, so it was kind of like that. But I’m still […]