Mary Finnegan is a cancer survivor who attended my memoir-writing class for senior citizens in downtown Chicago a few years back. When she read the guest post my husband Mike Knezovich wrote here after his sister died, Mary offered to light a luminaria for Kris in the Oak Lawn Relay for Life of the American […]

A lot of the conversation during The Q&A after my talk with Skokie Public Library’s Talking Books Book Club last week centered around independence. After we shared tips for keeping track of our prescriptions, identifying colors of clothing, using talking computers to read and write, one senior citizen with macular degeneration piped up and said […]

Both of the memoir-writing classes I teach are taking time off in June, and one of the last topics I assigned before the break was this: choose a photograph, any photograph, and describe it to me in 500 words or less. “But please don’t say, well, this is a woman in a yellow skirt with […]

Last fall I started teaching a second weekly memoir-writing class for senior citizens. Anna Perlberg is one of the students in that second class at Lincoln Park Village, and it’s been a treat to hear her unveil her stories out loud to us every Thursday. Anna’s husband Mark Perlberg co-founded the Poetry Center of Chicago […]

Last Thursday I gave a presentation to a class at Carnegie Mellon University. Harper couldn’t make the trip to Pittsburgh, and I am very grateful to my gracious husband Mike for stepping in as Seeing Eye Human and making this visit possible. The class I spoke to was History 79-311: “Body Politics: Women and Health […]