Regina Brett Speaking At St. John Vianney Church Tonight

Regina Brett -- a columnist who was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize -- will speak at 7:30 p.m. today at .

Brett will offer lessons from her new book, Be the Miracle: 50 Lessons for Making the Impossible Possible. The book talks about ways in which ordinary people can make an extraordinary difference.

Brett has survived a lot. She was one of 11 children, a single mother for 18 years and is a cancer survivor. She took the lessons she learned from life's lumps and used them to write her column for The Plain Dealer.

One column she wrote in particular, titled Lessons Life Taught Me, was traded over continents via the Internet. It extolled such common-sense suggestions as "Life is too short to waste time hating anyone" and "Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple."

The column became so popular she parlayed its themes and messages into a book, God Never Blinks: 50 Lessons for Life's Little Detours.

St. John Vianney will have mass at 7 p.m. before Brett speaks. A good will offering will be collected afterward and Brett will donate it to The Gathering Place, a caring community for those touched by cancer.