Sharon Kramer is a new writer in the memoir-writing class I lead at the Chicago Cultural Center. I’d intended on using an excerpt from her “One Thing I Didn’t Like About My Mother” essay in my last blog post, but soon realized that to really get the gist, you have to read this wonderful essay […]

What my memoir writers came up with when I asked them to write “One Thing I Didn’t Like About my Mother.”

So many of you commented here (or told me personally) about how much you liked reading last week’s post about 92-year-old writer Wanda Bridgeforth’s first try at using a new high-tech “caption phone,” that I thought you might enjoy this spirited email from Wanda about her progress with the phone since then: Hello from Wanda […]

Senior citizen? Aged? In their elderhood? Golden Ager? Old? Elderly? Baby-boommers are getting older. Do we need a new term to describe them?

I am always inspired by the stories my memoir writers read out loud about their past, but sometimes, I’m equally inspired by a story one of them tells me about what’s going on in their present life. Take Wanda. She has had a significant hearing loss since childhood and sits right next to me during […]