All This Rage: What’s the Creative Response to Anger?


house on fire creative

Why are we all so angry? Thirty years ago I spent a day in Cook County Jail in Chicago. I was there to shoot a segment for a documentary program I was producing about prisons. That day I met 25 teenage boys (most awaiting trial on murder charges) locked in a classroom with their teacher. I felt privileged to spend the day with them, and to interview a few about their experiences. Through their program with led by their teacher Charles Rankin (based on the work of Les...

Read More »

Make the Change. Be the Change.


Today is my 58th birthday. How strange it is to think I’ve been around that many years, but I have. And I haven’t wasted a year. I’ve lived a full, rich and exciting life that has led me places I could not even have imagined. Toward the end of 2013, I found myself waking up in the mornings with aches and pains that made me feel old. But at 58 I’m not ready to slow down. I thought of my friend Wiebke, who at 76 is one of the most vibrant, fit, active women I know of any age....

Read More »

A Good Day to Die


I’m in bed, unable to sleep. Maybe I’m still jet-lagged after 10 weeks in the States, but there’ve been a few sleepless nights in the last two weeks. I’ve noticed something on a couple of these nights, like tonight: I find myself thinking about dying. It’s not that I want to die, nor am thinking about killing myself. I am simply thinking about what it would be like to not wake up tomorrow. Today I spent 67 minutes on the phone, calling people I know who I feel...

Read More »