Sisters Jennifer and Jordan Turpin Give Testimony to Life

It is my privilege to salute Jennifer and Jordan Turpin, two young women who escaped and started over after a lifetime of the unimaginable. David and Louise Turpin raised their 13 children in secret squalor and tortuous rules, until, to save her siblings, Jordan found the courage at age 17 to leap into the world she'd never known.

“I Came To Chicago To Work”

Dear Readers: Rachel Leรณn interviewed me for Chicago Review of Books on my latest novel SPEAKING OF SUMMER, the writing life and working in Chicago. Iโ€™d forgotten how much we covered: the novel composition process, support (or the lack thereof) for mental health, inequities in approaches to men and womenโ€™s meditative literature, unsafety for women. … Continue reading “I Came To Chicago To Work”

Remembering Maria-Hรฉlรจne Schneider…

46 years ago, a moving picture testified to sexual assault against a woman. It moved all around the world, in fact. Only, the world called it โ€œart.โ€ Not much has changed since. This most visible example of a public rape frames sexual assaultโ€™s most misunderstood and excused forms: coerced consent, false pretenses and pressure as permission. And people can still buy and sell this sexual assault on film to this day. Why?