I assured the standing-room-only crowd at our Getting Your Memoir Off the Ground session at Printers Row Lit Fest Sunday morning that their wait for 95-year-old panelist Wanda Bridgeforth would be worth it. “Funny thing was, Wanda Jr. was waiting for me upstairs,” Wanda told me later. “And I was waiting for her downstairs!” My […]

Those of you who have read Writing Out Loud know that essays by the writers in the memoir classes I lead are sprinkled throughout the book. This week you have a couple of opportunities to meet some of those writers in person: Bruce and Anne Hunt (Writing Out Loud readers will know them from Ch. […]

Just got back from Champaign, Illinois — I gave a presentation to an Animal Sciences class at the University of Illinois yesterday. I speak to this class once a semester, and this time I spent a fair amount of the hour going over some of the qualifications necessary to become a guide dog instructor. Most […]

My Seeing Eye dog Whitney and I took an Amtrak train to Central Illinois Monday to give a presentation to an animal sciences class at the University of Illinois. While there in Urbana, we looked in on retired Seeing Eye dog Hanni. Her human companions Nancy and Steven report The 16-year-old star of Hanni and […]

Journalist James Fallows has a piece in the current issue of Atlantic Monthly suggesting that Americans watch tomorrow’s presidential debate with the sound off. Ah, that I could! In his article, Fallows argues that the things that really matter in political debates these days are all visual. He predicts that the upcoming presidential debates will […]