I was treated to a whole bunch of this. Our trip to Mendocino, California, occupied us so fully and so well that I’m only just now writing this post today (Monday) on a 737 flying home. Only last Wednesday we were on a 737 to San Francisco. On our flight out, a young man with long blonde […]

Ah, the things I learn from the memoir-writers in my classes. Until civil rights advocate Regan Burke encouraged me to start up a class of my own here in Printer’s Row, I didn’t know a thing about “bibliotherapy,” the idea that writing memoir can help alleviate both emotional and physical pain. Regan’s guest post today […]

When I assigned “Traits I Share with my Mother” as a Mother’s Day writing prompt, Bill opted to write about his stepmother. His essay starts decades ago, when he first came up with the expression “Good Betty/Bad Betty” to describe her behavior. Betty is 102 years old now, and Bill says the moniker still fits. […]

A good friend of my sister Cheryl in Anacortes, Washington is in a book club, and on Monday afternoon I attended as a guest author. When one of the members said she loved how much Writing Out Loud taught her about Chicago, her fellow members swelled up in a chorus of uh-huhs and yeses. The reaction […]

In honor of Independence Day, I asked writers in my memoir classes to come up with 500-word essays about a time in their lives when they felt particularly independent. ”What circumstances left you feeling that way?” Writers came back with stories about riding a bike without training wheels, camping with friends during high school, their […]