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 of the New Regal Theater. If you've looked at my Our Chicago book, you know that Open House Chicago is my favorite public event in the city. Hosted by the [...]
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 Vein of Gold, which in turn is part of me continuing to home in on my creative core. Cameron contends, and many, many writers concur, that you can walk out [...]
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 lookout, but I doubt she'll find one, especially not a cute little one for decoration. What to do? I can't mail her a real pumpkin; it might rot before it [...]
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 to me as ever, so I am sharing it again. I am still happy that I managed to write about faith and to put my take on this iconic incantation [...]
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 Deborah Levy's story of becoming a writer, initially by listing, as an adolescent, all the things she didn't want to know growing up in apartheid South Africa. By that she [...]
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 much larger than my little studio, which used to be a maid's room. I've never had an attic before since I've always lived in apartment buildings, and so I love [...]