Regular Talk, Only Shorter

About the Book

About the Author

Diane Brauer was born on December 17, 1942 in New York City and died on March 31, 2002 in Chicago, Illinois. She was raised in Roslyn Heights, New York, in a household that included her parents, her sister, and her two maternal grandparents. After two short marriages she found her life partner in her husband of 28 years, Bill, and together she helped raise her step-daughter Gretchen and Gretchen’s two dog siblings, Sophie and Sam. She received her undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin, and her Masters in Social Work from the University of Chicago. The majority of her social work career was spent working with older adults in the psychiatric department at Northwestern University in Chicago, where she was known locally and nationally for her poetry therapy groups. From a very young age poetry was not only a way to express and work through her life dilemmas, but also a way to express her crisp, ironic sense of humor. She was, above all, a person without pretense. More than anything, this book reflects that very real person in all her incarnations, beauty and scars alike, always straight talk with a twinkle of humor.