Last week Beth and I had the honor of attending an event held by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). If you’re not familiar with the SLPC, it’s a non-profit that does difficult and often-dangerous legal work and research to fight racial prejudice and injustice, and helps those who could not otherwise afford legal services. It […]

As many of you know, Beth is a voracious reader. Or, to be technically accurate, a voracious listener. Between the Library of Congress’ fantastic free audio book service and the commercial offerings of publishers and services like Audible.com, she’s always got several books on her cool little listening device—it’s called Victor Reader Stream. Bad name, great […]

As many of you know, our son Gus lives in a group home in Wisconsin that is operated by Bethesda Lutheran Communities. Gus is developmentally disabled, and he lives with three other developmentally disabled men in a yellow ranch home in a bucolic little burg called Watertown. Some terrific people have cared for Gus and […]

I am pleased to introduce my friend Rachel Arfa as a guest blogger today. Rachel and I both advocate for cultural accessibility, and we met, guess where? In a theater lobby after enjoying a play. Rachel is profoundly deaf, communicates by talking and lipreading and uses bilateral cochlear implants to hear. A 2017 Fellow in the […]

Last week the prompt for my Wednesday memoir-writing class was, “How I Got through a Transition in Life that Wasn’t my Choice.” An overwhelming number of Chicagoans had voted against the new president, so I reasoned a lot of my writers might be concerned about Friday’s inauguration.  “For next week I want you to look […]