I am pleased to feature author Regan Burke as our Saturdays withSeniors guest blogger today. News stories this month inspired me to assign “Transition Team” to her writing class this past week. “Focus on a significant change in your life,” I told them. “Who helped you through?” The long-awaited publication of Regan’s memoir In That […]

Trainers at the Seeing Eye school encourage us to talk to our dogs as they guide us. “Remind them you’re there,” they say. “It keeps them focused.” Since the pandemic hit, I’ve been taking one, and sometimes two, hour long walks with Luna every day. What happens when I run out of things to talk to […]

I am pleased to feature Marjorie Freed as our Saturdays with Seniors guest blogger today. Longtime Chicago residents might remember her as the owner of Nonpareil, one of the coolest shops on Clark Street back when Clark Street was full of very cool independently-owned stores. She and her husband Harvey collected outsider art and were […]

If you’re reading this before 4:00 pm CT today, you’re in luck. You can still register for the free online launch for Regan Burke’s published memoir, “In That Number.” I’m reposting Regan’s own announcement from her Back Story Essays blog. The book launch is free, but you have to register first, and registration information is […]

To honor what would have been John Lennon’s 80th birthday yesterday, I asked writers in my memoir classes to choose a Beatles song title and use that as the title of their 500-word memoir.  A few writers came back with essays about being “back in the USSR,” one wrote about how they “should have known better, […]