Hemingway Birthplace Home Video Tour
For my students who missed class at the Hemingway House and all my blog readers, here's a little video tour of my writer-in-residence studio in the attic, the attic itself, [...]
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Oct, 2014
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Oct, 2014
Holding Class at the Hemingway House
My Advanced Memoir Workshop meets in the dining room of the Hemingway Birthplace Home. What a cool occasion to take a group selfie! Yesterday my Advanced Memoir workshop, usually held [...]
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Oct, 2014
Open House Chicago: New Regal Theater
It might look like I traveled to the Middle East to take this picture, but I only traveled to the far South Side of Chicago to peek into the interior [...]
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Oct, 2014
The Challenge of Daily Walks
For October I've given myself the challenge of going for at least a 20-minute walk every day. This is part of me digging deeper into Julia Cameron's book The [...]
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Oct, 2014
Paper Pumpkin to the Rescue
My daughter who's been in Israel for a while now misses pumpkins. It's fall but there ain't any pumpkins to be found in that desert land. She's been on the [...]
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Oct, 2014
In Awe of Kol Nidre
Stained glass window front at Chicago Loop Synagogue My essay on Kol Nidre was published a year ago, and on the eve of another Yom Kippur it is as relevant [...]
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Oct, 2014
Deborah Levy’s Things I Don’t Want to Know
Isn't this a great title? It's a great book, too; one of the most skillfully wrought I have read in a long time. Things I Don't Want to Know is [...]
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Sep, 2014
Poking about Hemingway’s Attic
Every time I'm at my writer-in-residence studio at the Hemingway House, I poke about the attic. I feel like it's my foyer, my grand foyer, actually, as it is so [...]
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Sep, 2014
Wandering the Streets of Akko
Today is Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, so I thought I'd share another glimpse of Israel, from a day trip my daughter and I took to Akko in July. [...]
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Sep, 2014
Blog Post No. 500
My post with a detailed recipe (including step-by-step photos) on how to make Zwetschgendatschi remains one of my most popular posts. Who would have thought? Not me. 500 blog posts! [...]
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Sep, 2014
My List for Celebrating Fall
Temperatures have been unseasonably nippy here in Chicago; clearly, fall is in the air. It's been a while since I've done a seasonal list, but I am so looking [...]
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Sep, 2014
Manaus Journal (4): The Amazon is a Mirror
I'd seen photographs of the mirror-like quality of the Amazon in National Geographic, but to find myself floating on it was a whole other experience. I spent the better [...]
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Sep, 2014
Remembering 9/11
For my generation, today's date will live in infamy. It will simply never again be another day. 9/11 will always make me shiver, and I will always have second thoughts [...]
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Aug, 2014
Goldilocks at the Hemingway House
My studio in the attic used to be a maid's room but is now furnished by Thomasville of Oakbrook, featuring their safari-style Hemingway Collection of furniture and décor. I have to say I'm [...]
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Aug, 2014
Tel Aviv Street Scenes
Since I'm still preoccupied with my daughter being in Israel, I thought I'd share some of my photos taken while walking around or sitting in cafés in Tel Aviv, providing [...]
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Aug, 2014
Tel Aviv Bauhaus
Tel Aviv is on my mind right now as my daughter is enlisting in the Israeli Defense Forces today. When this post appears, she is already in her uniform. I've [...]
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Aug, 2014
Bella Grace Blog Hop: Recipe for a Perfect Day on the Porch
The capturing of this recipe was inspired by Bella Grace and is my contribution to the Bella Grace Blog Hop. Essential: 1 porch 1 summer day, temperatures in the 70s, [...]
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Aug, 2014
My First Interview as an Author
It's official: I'm a writer. The cat is out of the bag in my neighborhood. The local newspaper, the Hyde Park Herald, did an author interview with me due to [...]
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Aug, 2014
Mining your Dreams for Writing (2)
"Thanks to my dreams [and NaNoWriMo], November is one of my favorite and most amusing times," says novelist Shirley Letcher. Following up on last Monday's post, here's installment two of [...]
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Aug, 2014
Manaus Journal (3) – The Ideal State of Being – a Hammock
On our two-day Amazon adventure in between attending World Cup games in Manaus, Brazil, we stayed overnight in a floating lodge, the Tauari Inn. I will share more photos from [...]
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Aug, 2014
Manaus Journal (2) – Tie your House to a Tree
In between attending two World Cup games in Manaus, the capital city of the Amazon, we had time to explore the river and the rain forest. When we were visiting [...]
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Aug, 2014
Mining your Dreams for Writing (1)
I am happy to welcome my writing friend Shirley Letcher as my guest blogger today. Shirley has been a teacher of music, theater and arts for over forty years, from [...]
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Jul, 2014
Tel Aviv Journal: Life with Air Raids
My super short video of air raid sirens in Tel Aviv on July 12, 2014 I've been home in Chicago now for a while but I kept a journal [...]
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Jul, 2014
Writer-in-Residence at the Hemingway Foundation
My big news since returning from Tel Aviv: I will be the 2014-15 writer-in-residence at the Hemingway Foundation! This entails having a studio up under the roof of Hemingway's birthplace home [...]
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Jul, 2014
Sirens over Tel Aviv
This is the Tel Aviv building where we are currently staying on the top floor - the penthouse is set back so you can't see it from the street, plus it's rather [...]
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Jul, 2014
Manaus Journal (1) – Terrific Games, Horrific Travel
A snippet of what it was like to be in the stadium during a World Cup game I had the good fortune to travel with two of my children to [...]
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Jun, 2014
Glen Finland on the Power of Storytelling
Meeting other formidable writers is one of the great benefits of attending a writers residency. And so, last January, I had the great fortune of meeting Glen Finland during my [...]
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Jun, 2014
The Power of Practice
While I am off amidst the frenzy and heat of the World Cup in Brazil, I leave you with a post on practice, inspired by Natalie Goldberg's newest book, The [...]
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Jun, 2014
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Jun, 2014
My Writing Process – A Blog Hop
Writing on the couch I've been tagged by my friend Gillian Marchenko, a former student of mine and author of the memoir Sun Shine Down, to participate in the #MyWritingProcess [...]
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Jun, 2014
In Honor of Father’s Day
I'm rerunning my six-word Dad memoir from three years ago, that sadly will always be true because, even 29 years after he died, the tears can still creep up [...]
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Jun, 2014
Unveiling: The Chicago List Essay Project
Our Chicago - Eleven Writers on their City - Edited by Annette Gendler | Make Your Own Book I published a book with my students! Our Chicago is a collection of [...]
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Jun, 2014
The Glory of Green
Our country property in Indiana is finally, gloriously saturated with green. I've never been so hungry and so thirsty for green! After this long hard winter and all its [...]
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Jun, 2014
A Jewel Box for Ideas
My Morning Pages are really a jewel box for ideas. I realized, in writing this morning, that ideas function with the same abundance principle as the rest of life. If [...]
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Jun, 2014
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Jun, 2014
Is My Story Dramatic Enough?
Last week my essay "Is My Story Dramatic Enough?" was published in the Washington Independent Review of Books. Its foundation was laid one evening when one of my students stopped [...]
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May, 2014
Living with Chronic Pain
I can't write about the book I recently finished and liked so much, Lynne Greenberg's The Body Broken, without going into my own experience of chronic pain, which is [...]
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May, 2014
Eyeing the Emptying Nest
I've been in a blogging slump, and I figure it's better to admit that than to publish lackluster posts. There are books I want to write about, photo essays I want [...]
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May, 2014
Being a Parent Must Be Awesome…
My "awesome" Mother's Day present this year "Being a parent must be awesome," says my 13-year-old son, eyeing me from the upper bunk as I wake him up in time [...]
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May, 2014
When a Book is Done
I just finished a book I really liked, one I had been meaning to read for a while, and I'm sad it's done. That's the hallmark of a good book, [...]
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Apr, 2014
Driehaus Museum
Drawing Room Lamp, Driehaus Museum Two blocks west of the Magnificent Mile, on Erie Street, there is to be found a marble palace. It is, from the outside, an stately [...]
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Apr, 2014
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Apr, 2014
One Year of Morning Pages
My stack of Morning Pages notebooks tells me that today, 4/8/14, is my one-year anniversary. That means one year of writing every weekday morning, stream of consciousness, by hand, in [...]
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Apr, 2014
When Guests Come…
...you clean up. It's really one of the great benefits of having overnight guests or even just throwing a party: Suddenly you're compelled to tackle all those "construction sites" around [...]
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Mar, 2014
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Mar, 2014
Cleaning Out Book Shelves
On a recent Sunday, the mood struck me to finally weed out the three shelves in our big wall of books that are dedicated to my collection of memoirs. The shelves [...]
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Mar, 2014
In Search of Spring Flowers at the Garfield Park Conservatory
I'm usually not a spring person, but this year I am hungry (hungry!) for spring flowers and vibrant colors, and so yesterday I took myself on an Artist's Date to [...]
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Mar, 2014
Greetings from the Blue Ridge Mountains
This photo is from one of my jaunts during my time at the VCCA. Since I'm bummed by all the snow we've had, yet again, here at home in Chicago, [...]
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Mar, 2014
What Makes Winter Bearable
Starting a fire at 10:00 a.m. Ordering a hyacinth garden for a friend recovering from surgery Stocking up on sandalwood lotion and Dead Sea bath salts Hot chocolate for morning break Red [...]
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Feb, 2014
Visiting Monticello in Winter
President Jefferson's Monticello estate in winter While I was at the VCCA, I visited Monticello, President Thomas Jefferson's estate. It is near Charlottesville, a good hour's drive from [...]