You may have heard earlier this month that the Texas School Board recommended the removal of Helen Keller from its required Grade 3 social studies curriculum. The story of Helen Keller’s childhood is well-known. She lost both her hearing and her sight after a childhood illness, and after the breakthrough moment when teacher Anne Sullivan […]

During the current six-week session I’ve given a writing prompt about name changes, and two seasonal prompts as well: “Back to School” and “Rite of Passage.” This essay Audrey Mitchell wrote could have qualified for all three! Hearing it read in class taught us what a gift her mother, Leila Goodwin, had for solving the […]

What fun it was to be interviewed in front of an audience by my friend and fellow memoir-writer Regan Burke last Friday. Here’s an account of the evening from her, well, point of view. Last Friday night Beth and I participated in an event called “Body Language—Reading and Discussions about Writing the Body.” The event […]

In the Chicago area? No big plans tonight? Come to Access Living (115 W Chicago Avenue) at 6:30 pm for a book presentation. Regan Burke, one of the writers from my memoir-writing classes whose stories intertwine with mine in my latest book, Writing Out Loud, will be interviewing me on stage about teaching and writing […]

As Whitney guided me through the lobby to our memoir-writing class at the Chicago Cultural Center last Wednesday, I got wind of a special exhibit there about a Chicago neighborhood called Bronzeville. Wanda Bridgeforth, the 95-year-old matriarch of my classes? She grew up in Bronzeville. In her essays, she describes that segregated South Side neighborhood […]