If you haven’t signed up to follow BlindBeader’s Life Unscripted blog yet, I highly recommend you do. BlindBeader is a gifted young writer who lives in Edmonton, Alberta with her husband, three cats and guide dog Jenny. She wrote a guest post for our Safe & Sound blog last month with recommendations for visiting New […]

The predicted high today is 4º. Some of our Chicago friends have escaped to Florida, Mexico, Costa Rica. Whitney and me? We took off north, to Wisconsin. I’m writing from our hotel in beautiful Menomonee Falls, just outside Milwaukee. Whitney and I are preparing for our visits to schools in nearby Mayville, which, according to […]

A week ago yesterday my Sunday started pretty typically: Did the Times Crossword, started laundry, got a pot of chili in the oven (I like to braise chunks of chuck roast), then headed to the gym with Beth. I hadn’t been feeling exactly sharp all day, but I’d hoped working up a sweat, hitting the […]

Four different editors at University of Illinois Press went over the rough draft of my memoir before they published it. All of them suggested changes. One of the most common request? Stronger verbs. They also wanted descriptions that were more precise, more colorful, more heartfelt. Now, 12 years after my memoir, Long Time, No See […]

Beth here. We debuted our “Mondays with Mike” feature just about a year ago, and since then many of you blog readers have told us how much you enjoy starting your week reading my husband Mike Knezovich’s posts. Some of you newcomers might not know that Mike had been weighing in occasionally with guest posts […]