Every Wednesday, Hanni leads me to the Chicago Cultural Center to teach a memoir-writing class for senior citizens. Eighteen women, great names. Myrna. Sybil. Eldoris. Bea. They’d grown up on the south side, in the suburbs, in Italy, in West Rogers Park. Some have Masters degrees. One finished her undergrad at age 73. Many of […]
In last week’s post, I listed all the things we did with our friends from Northern Ireland while they were visiting. One thing I forgot to include: my visit to the Ela Area Public Library In Lake Zurich, IL. Well, actually I didn’t forget to include it – I left it off the […]
Last week Sheelagh — my first-ever volunteer reader — and her friend Beni came from Northern Ireland to spend 8 days in Chicago with us. Sheelagh was an exchange student from Belfast when I met her in Urbana, IL in 1986. She’d signed up for volunteer work at the University of Illinois to “meet […]
The movie Blindness premiered last Friday, starring Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo. It’s based on the 1995 novel by Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago — I listened to the audio version of the book years ago, when it was first publishsed. The book was praised for its use of blindness as a metaphor — a bunch […]
A wonderful thing happened after the presentation Hanni and I gave at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library, yesterday. Actually, a lot of wonderful things have been happening since Hanni and I arrived in Little Rock on Wednesday. We’re here thanks to a grant put together by two powerhouse women: Bronwyn Palmer works […]