Writers join the memoir-writing classes I lead for all sorts of reasons. Some tell me they want to hone their writing skills, some hope it will improve their memory, others want to publish their work. And so on. None of the writers in my classes have told me they signed up for their first class […]

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 […]

The Chicago Tribune interviewed three Chicago-area memoir-writing teachers for an article they published last week called A story to tell: Memoir writing unlocks family life and times. I haven’t yet met the other two writers, but when reading the article it came as no surprise to me to learn we all have one thing in […]

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 […]