In the dozen or so years I’ve been leading memoir-writing classes, I always pretty much assumed that getting life episodes down on paper is good for your brain. Now studies are starting to prove it. A Creativity and Aging Study by the National Endowment for the Arts shows that writing memoir can result in the […]

The announcement of the final writing prompt for 2017 was met with a chorus of groans. “What I hope for?” they asked. “For what? For Christmas? When? You mean you want an essay about what I’d do if I won the lottery? Is that what you mean? The Chicago Bears winning a game this year…can […]

Mike, Seeing-Eye dog Whitney and I are taking a train to Wisconsin tomorrow to visit our son Gus for the weekend, and while we’re away our niece Janet and her kids are staying at our place to enjoy Christmassy Chicago. So, like so many others, Mike and I are running around packing, shopping and cleaning. […]

Writers in my classes who are downsizing into smaller apartments or senior living centers come to class musing about all the stuff they’ve accumulated over the years. What do they leave behind, I wonder. How do they decide? I also wonder what writing assignment I might give to prompt them to answer those questions. Wonder […]

Here’s one last essay I want to share from the “The Best thing I Ever Bought, Borrowed or Stole” assignment I gave to my memoir-writing classes. This one is written by Michael Graff, who grew up in a suburb of Chicago called Flossmoor. The “Pink House” he refers to in his story is their family’s […]