Frugal Poet's Guide to Life

The guitar, the drums, the flamenco dance, the romance of Alhambra Palace on Fridays! Soul and Duende Flamenco Dance Company performs for ...

Where else can you enjoy nine Irish plays in six days? This is the first year Chicago's Irish American Heritage Center and Shapeshifters...

Come to a new spoken word venue in Chicago, Dragonlady Lounge , on Sunday, May 30 at 7 p.m. You're invited to a book release party for a...

Even though we enjoyed dinner at Chalkboard Restaurant in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago last night at 5:00 p.m., my husband a...

Chicago poet and arts critic Effie Mihopoulos, who published and promoted her fellow poets for decades, and took an active role in the Chica...

I must be still ringing in the New Year, because I finally got around to my semi-annual treat of a body scrub at Paradise Sauna in Chicago ...

Every once in a blue moon, such as the one we're having this New Year's, I'll post a complete poem that I wrote. Here's one ...

Poet and fiction writer Sandra Cisneros turns 55 on Dec. 20, but she happened to sneak into her hometown a little early to celebrate her bir...

I occasionally try different writers' groups in Chicago. One balmy Saturday in November, I attended the Illinois Woman's Press Assoc...

When we think of Thanksgivings of the past, our memories can often blur into visual "bytes" of rising before sun-up, basting turke...

One of the best times to start a journal is during a special trip or vacation. And when teamed with photos and drawings, the same journal e...

A friend, Kim, who's a wine merchant, laid a windfall of bottles on me before leaving for Italy on a business trip. She's destined t...

Behind the front-row-center Main Street scene in Galena, Illinois, lie some hidden treasures worth unveiling. Linmar Gardens high on the hil...

Before Park Ridge, Illinois, was famous as Hillary Clinton's home town, it was famous for the Deep End Club, one of the few venues that ...

This poem, inspired by Wallace Stevens' "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" traces 12 moon months according to the names given...

Finally getting out news about the 2009 Printers Ball in Chicago a week late, but wanted to include a fun photograph of Audrey Niffenegger, ...

What pleased me most about visiting the Galos Salt Caves spa and health experience on Chicago's northwest side was its cleanliness. Ton...

Look it up now in the 2009 update ofMerriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. Hardworking word-lovers everywhere can n...

My husband Carlos and I were fortunate enough to attend Naropa University's ceremony honoring Allen Ginsberg, poet, activist and co-fou...

I suppose this post is more about photos than text. And more about lasting poets than passing fancies. During the third week of Naropa Unive...