When Next Avenue published Richard Eisenberg’s viral story, “Sorry, Nobody Wants Your Parent’s Stuff,” the site received a mountain of responses mirroring the thought. Some, however, found themselves caught between the need to clear out their late par… Continue reading
Before The Widower’s Notebook became an eloquent and poignant memoir, it was six composition-style notebooks filled by the novelist and artist Jonathan Santlofer in a nightly practice which he says “kept him grounded” at a time when he felt wholly “dis… Continue reading
Question for you, fellow travelers: When you’re on the road alone, for business or pleasure, what do you do about dinner? Do you settle for a burger at the hotel bar, or order room service while you watch a movie? (That’s what the original Liberated Wo… Continue reading
Illustrator Nancy Carlson vividly remembers the spring day in 2007 when she simultaneously felt like “the happiest person in the world” while at the same time experiencing an odd sensation that everything was about to change. “My husband Barry was outs… Continue reading
(Editor’s Note: This story was previously published by PBS NewsHour.) Vijay Gupta is a Juilliard-trained violinist and MacArthur Genius Award winner who’s been using music as a way to connect with L.A.’s homeless and incarcerated and promote healing. A… Continue reading
My mother, Anne Pols, celebrated her 87th birthday in November. In that same month, she also made her art show debut, exhibiting a half-dozen freehand colored pencil drawings at the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook, N.Y. She and six other residents of… Continue reading
Creative inspiration can strike when it is least expected. For Richard Hitchler, co-founder and artistic director of Theatre 55, an early summer bike ride in 2018 past the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul, Minn. provided a light bulb moment as he w… Continue reading
Many years after he first started college, Todd Makler is back in school and happy to be there. Makler, 72, is currently a student in the Stanford Continuing Studies Program and takes courses every quarter at the Palo Alto university. A retired physici… Continue reading
Self-help books are the genre Americans love to hate. Readers spend $800 million on them a year, while others complain they’re nothing more than psychobabble, unhelpful to anyone at all. Whether The Secret, You Are a Badass or Who Moved My Cheese? real… Continue reading
Do you ever wish you knew how to play a musical instrument? If so, you are not alone. Yet a 2012 National Endowment for the Arts survey found that just 12 percent of U.S. adults were playing musical instruments. This gap between aspiration and actualit… Continue reading