Remember Melissa Bank’s book about falling in love, Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing? Well, my helpful advice book is A Girl’s Guide to Running and Screaming.

This year, the creative urge hit me around the time I began considering what Christmas cards to send out this year.

Despite spending many summers at art colonies or crafts schools in remote wooded locations, I never got much inspiration from nature in doing my art. All the green just did not do much for me. Then one summer I signed up for a bookmaking class

In the early 1980s, while living in Chicago and making my living as a medical writer, I found myself looking for a different way to spend my vacation time. A coworker told me about Oxbow, a summer art colony run by the Art Institute of Chicago.

I had my doubts.