StoryStudio has these "In a Year" classes, and I have been selected to be part of its Memoir in a Year class. Truth be told, I'm still shocked. It being a memoir class, I chose a piece that started from…
Author: Gwynne Monahan
I’m taking a class, Writing the Other: The Power of the Profile, through the University of Chicago’s Graham School of Continuing Studies. Fiction and nonfiction classes at the Graham School are workshops, or what you’d expect if you were getting…
Tucked away around the industrial section of Elston Street and the north branch of the Chicago River, across the street from the complex that houses Chicago’s Department of Fleet Management, is The Hideout. Given its location it is not a…
Here it is, the second Saturday of September, complete with that sense of Fall with an early touch of winter. There is a crispness to the air that I had forgotten, and a sense of slowing down to recalibrate for…
Back in March, I gave a presentation at LexThink called “What Strawberry Pop-Tarts and Your Law Firm Data Have in Common.” I still think it was a fluke, but I’m learning that flukes are a method employed by Fate for…
A couple weeks into the Live Lit class, the instructor took us out into the hallway where he set down four pieces of paper: two labeled "AGREE" and two labeled "DISAGREE." He put them in separate corners so that no…
The second descriptive exercise, also two minutes. For this one, we had to pick one of three things, and I choose a weather event. The first descriptive exercise is here. I hugged the Starburst tightly to my chest as we…
Live Lit assignment was to pick a public figure, not political or religious, and write, well, a diatribe. The other stories in class were excellent. One on Walt Disney, one on PowerPoint and one on a guy who runs an…
The assignment was to be descriptive, choosing one of three scenarios presented, and condensing it down to a 2-minute piece. She looked normal. Cake foundation pock-marking the wrinkles, enhancing the fine hairs above her lip. The lips were curled as…
One of my slides in my LexThink presentation shows my Data Points stack in Evernote. A few people asked about the one labeled Music, the one labeled Lyrics, and what they mean. Good question. The one labeled Music has to…