A ratty old handmade afghan. A Tunturi Executive Ergometer W Original stationary bicycle. A batik flamingo. A collection of broken watches. A 49-year-old steam iron. That list is a small sampling of the precious items the writers in my memoir classes wrote about when I assigned “Something I own that I should throw away…and probably […]

In my previous post I mentioned that one writer chose Vidal Sassoon’s death as one that had made him particularly sad. A Blog follower left a comment saying she’d love to read that essay, and writer Bob Eisenberg graciously gave us permission to publish it here. Bob Eisenberg is still styling hair after 60 years […]

Mike’s post last month about using Facebook to mourn for Prince motivated me to ask the writers in the memoir classes I lead to write about a celebrity’s death that made them really sad. “The celebrity can be an author, an artist, an athlete, a musician, an actor, an actress, a political figure, anyone who […]

When I write about the older adults in the memoir classes I lead in Chicago, I never describe what the writers look like. Now you can find out for yourselves! Darlene Schweitzer, a writer in the “Me, Myself and I” class I lead in downtown Chicago, played around with something called Adobe Voice and came […]

The “Me, Myself and I” memoir-writing class I lead for the City of Chicago’s Department on Aging is in fifth place in a contest put on by the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and they need to be in third place by the end of the day Sunday, May 1. The top three community groups who […]