Baseball, brain tumors, babies and bad hair days

Baseball, brain tumors, babies and bad hair days.

Okay, so maybe those don't go together as nicely as baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet.

But they all somehow do come together as parts of journalist Liz Holzemer's story, which she recounts in her new book, Curve Ball: When Life Throws You a Brain Tumor (Ghost Road Press).

Liz's story is not really a Chicago one. As the wife of an ex-big league pitcher, she's lived in places all over the country and all over the world. But Chicago isn't one of those places.

So why am I telling her story? Because it's a universal story of survival, one that she tells in a touching but also humorous way.

I came to know Liz because she and I are both columnists for Sanity Central, a parental humor website. What made Liz unique among the crowd of columnists at this site is that she was writing a humor column about her battle against a brain tumor. How does she manage to write with such candor and wit?

Find out in my interview with Liz at ChicagoWrites.org.