An eighty-year-old writer in the Thursday memoir-writing class I lead for Lincoln Park Village was so moved by the Mondays with Mike post here this past Monday that he wrote his own essay about author Wallace Stegner. Bruse Hunt read this essay in class yesterday and generously gave us permission to share it with all you […]

I met today’s guest blogger Jeff Flodin when he and his Seeing Eye dog joined our downtown memoir writing class for a few sessions in 2009. Writing has been Jeff’s primary vocation ever since: He is working on a short story collection about vision loss, and a version of this guest post originally appeared on […]

Happy birthday, Seeing Eye! The oldest guide-dog school in America was incorporated this day in 1929 after co-founder Morris Frank returned from a pioneering guide dog program in Switzerland. He and his Seeing Eye dog Buddy are the pioneers of the guide dog movement in the United States, and I have him and everyone affiliated […]

I’ve made plenty of heartwarming connections through my Safe & Sound blog, but one I find particularly touching is my connection with Jennifer Doherty, a young guide dog user in Ireland. I have never met Jen face-to-face, but I feel I know her well by reading her Paws for Thought blog. She’s been blind her […]

I was 26 years old when I lost my sight. A Vietnam Veteran who was blinded in a military training accident was assigned to teach me how to cook. A friend who visited me at Braille Jail (that’s what I called the facility I was sent to in order to learn new blind skills) told […]