Here’s how an ‘Army of Lovers’ fought AIDS & changed health care in America
The World of Normal Boys, You Can Say You Knew Me When, and Robin and Ruby, he teaches MFA fiction writing at the University of San Francisco.
He’s also the recipient of the Henfield Prize for short fiction and the Rainin Filmmaking Grant for screenwriting.I stayed in ACT UP until 1995 and, having traded my acting career for the drama of street protests, spent over a decade working as a legal secretary and marketing specialist.
More recently, I was a research associate for David France for his book on AIDS activism, How to Survive a Plague. I’m currently the web content editor at the New York Institute of Technology.Although Karl and I were friendly at the time, we knew little about one another beyond what we witnessed at ACT UP meetings, demonstrations, and parties.
But our friendship has since grown stronger, grounded in those terrible, wonderful years we spent together in the trenches fighting the health crisis that wiped out many of our friends and colleagues and a generation of gay men.Much to our surprise and joy, 35 years after our first ACT UP meeting, both Karl and I recently published books about our experiences in ACT UP New York.
