I sure have been busy lately. But really? who hasn’t been?! My busy-ness doesn’t have much to do with the holidays, though. I’ve been busy writing, and it’s making me feel good! Let me explain. After decades and decades of querying magazines about story ideas, pleading with agents to give my latest manuscript a read, […]

I was delighted when Tammy Duckworth won last week’s election: it means she’ll  serve as senator here in Illinois for six more years. Senator Duckworth has a long career serving her country, and when it comes to disability access, she is an expert: she served in Iraq and lost both legs when a rocket-propelled grenade […]

Yesterday our friend Ruth drove Luna and me to Highwood, Illinois to visit third graders at Oak Terrace Elementary, a school that participates in an Educating Outside the Lines Disability Awareness Week program. Every day that week someone with a disability comes to talk with them about their disability and the “helper tools” that let […]

When the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) selected Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound as the winner of its Henry Bergh Children’s Book Award back in 2008, my sisters accompanied my second Seeing Eye dog Hanni and me to the American Library Association convention in Anaheim to receive the award. […]

A journalist contacted me a few months ago. “I’m working on a story about restaurants and accessibility,” she said. “Would you be willing to meet me for an interview?” Of course I said yes. We met at our local, Half Sour, and after introducing herself she asked, ““Do you want me to tell you what […]