After returning from his first trip abroad to Egypt, my nephew Brian Miller turned right around and went back to the Middle East for a semester of intensive Arabic in Jordan. Next stop, a study program in Kuwait with the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. From there he took side trips through Syria and Turkey. […]
When I interview someone over the phone for a story I’m writing, I always tell the person on the other end that the conversation is being recorded. I don’t always tell them I’m blind, though. And so it went when I interviewed Michael Miles. Miles was program director at Chicago’s legendary Old Town School of […]
Chicago Public Radio titled the essay Writer Beth Finke Goes from Teacher to Student, and aired it as a back-to- school piece. If you missed hearing it on the radio, you can listen to it online here. A clue to those of you who are as much of a computer nincompoop as I am: in […]
The Yankees come to Chicago this weekend, and like always, I’m rooting for my White Sox to sweep ‘em. I must admit, though, that a story on espn.com this week has left me with a soft spot for those Damn Yankees. Last Tuesday Manager Joe Girardi and pitchers David Robertson, Chad Gaudin and Joba Chamberlain […]
Every Wednesday, the seniors in my memoir-writing class pass a pouch of Scrabble tiles around the table. Whoever picks “A” reads their work aloud first, then “B” and so on. Last week, I threw a wrench into the works. I passed around a Ziploc bag full of loose change instead. “Just pick a coin,” I […]