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When It Comes to Writing, Everything Old is New Again

I mentioned in a previous blog post that I was returning to the Friend Grief series. That doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned my Fag Hags book. I have new, exciting plans related to that, so now would be a good time to sign up for my newsletter. In the meantime, I can tell you why and how I’m going back to the stories of people grieving their friends.
I finished the Friend Grief books in 2016, almost a year after I had started working on my next book. In doing so, I kept the promise I made to my friend Delle Chatman in 2006, to write a book about people grieving their friends. Despite the fact that I’d never written a book before, she was enthusiastic and supportive. Six months later she was dead.
Book Review: All The Young Men

What began as a simple question to a dying stranger - “What do you need, honey?” - changed the life of Ruth Coker Burks and the hundreds of people in Arkansas she helped during the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic. Little did she imagine that in a short amount of time, she would not only be caring for the dying, but burying their ashes in chipped cookie jars in her family plots in Files Cemetery. And more. Much more.
I Just Had to Let It Go

I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go
“Watching the Wheels” - John Lennon and Yoko Ono
For some reason, this lyric popped into my head. Actually, the reason is not a mystery.
On Dec. 6, I suffered a mild concussion, my second. I have the benefit of prior experience, and this time I have terrific doctors who took my injury seriously. Some of the after-effects have been minimal. A couple have been...not minimal.
All the great plans I was working on for this year came to a necessary halt.
Making Plans for 2021: A Leap of Faith
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The bottom line was that I wanted to diversify my writing and writing business. I didn't want to be overly dependent on any one activity, whether it was public events or book sales. And that meant I had to learn new skills and upgrade the ones I already had.
The Pandemic Had a Soundtrack

The audio version of my book - Fag Hags, Divas and Moms: The Legacy of Straight Women in the AIDS Community - came out in October. I've heard nothing but praise for the narrator, Donna Allen, which makes me very happy. While I was working on the marketing plan, music kept popping into my head. That's not unusual. A lot of people listen to music while they work. These were more like earworms: songs that played endlessly in my head whether I liked it or not.
The music sparked an idea, which apparently former President Barack Obama has stolen for his own book (I'm kidding, really I am). I decided to create a playlist of songs that evoke the first 15 years of the AIDS epidemic, from 1981-1996, the years without effective treatment or hope. Unfortunately, most of the songs I remembered were just, well, depressing. Creating that kind of list no longer seemed like a good idea.
So I turned to the women who inspire me, women whose stories I shared in my book. What songs instantly remind them of that time: of people, places or events? It didn't take long for a response.
How I Found the Perfect Audiobook Narrator

The story of Fag Hags, Divas and Moms: The Legacy of Straight Women in the AIDS Community has been the story of unexpected and meaningful connections. So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when my narrator became one of those. When I signed on with Findaway Voices to produce my audiobook, I had to submit a list of requirements for the narrator. That required me to think about tone, inflections, and mood.
Chadwick Boseman Was Right...And So Was My Friend Delle

It took awhile for me to realize that the question I asked my friends was based on my experiences in the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Back then, with no effective treatments, a diagnosis was an almost certain death sentence. One day you'd realize you hadn't seen someone for a while, and the next day you'd read their obituary in the weekly LGBT paper. Unless you were in constant contact you might not have a chance to help them or say goodbye. Even then, some people shut off contact with their friends, keeping their final illness a secret.
I thought of the answers I got from my friends - some said yes, some said no - when the shocking news of actor Chadwick Boseman's death was announced. Few people knew he'd been diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer four years earlier, and those who did know kept it a secret. During that time, he made some of his finest films, including Black Panther. I watched it a couple days later, and was struck by the fresh poignancy of some of the scenes.
A popular post on Facebook since then has been a photo of Boseman with the headline, "If 'No Excuses' Was a Person".
Really?
White Writers: Sharing Memes is Not Enough

There have been countless discussions - in person, online, on TV - about how white people can be effective allies for people of color. These are not always easy conversations.
Last fall, I attended a one-day conference on race in the HIV community. At least 85% of the attendees and speakers were black; I was conspicuously in the minority. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the discussions made me a little uncomfortable at times, even a bit defensive once or twice. That’s okay. I don’t believe these should be comfortable conversations.
Aside from the #PublishingPaidMe thread on Twitter (which has been eye-opening but not surprising), what other ways can white writers be effective allies...
#PublishingPaidMe

I’ve been watching Twitter lately, in particular a hashtag: #PublishingPaidMe. It was begun by two black YA authors, Tochi Onyebuchi and L.L. McKinney, calling out the glaring disparities between how much black and non-black authors are paid in advances.
For those who are unfamiliar with advances, publishers pay an author a certain amount of money, which conveys their belief in the future success of that book. It is usually based not only on the book’s excellence, but the platform of the author - the assurance that they are well-known and have a built-in audience. It’s like a down-payment, not paid in full until the publication date. The author earns nothing more until the book’s sales earn...
Reflection on COVID-19 - More from Trudy James

As I said last week, Trudy James is one of the most remarkable women in my book, Fag Hags, Divas and Moms: The Legacy of Straight Women in the AIDS Community. Her advocacy and activism - in HIV/AIDS and the death and dying communities - was recently honored by AARP Washington. She had so much to say about facing a deadly pandemic, that I decided to share more of her thoughts. I hope you find them comforting, too.
In addition to the “Speaking of Dying” film and workshops, I often give presentations, workshops, and consultations on the subjects of grief and loss. For many people this is new information. In these “Excited States of America” we have never...
Reflection on COVID-19 - Guest Post by Trudy James

If you've read my book Fag Hags, Divas and Moms: The Legacy of Straight Women in the AIDS Community, you were probably surprised by the story of Trudy James, a hospital chaplain in Arkansas in the late 1980s. I know her story surprised me, too! She is now a leader in the field of death and dying, as well as grief and loss awareness. In the first of two guest blogs, Trudy shares an email she sent out on March 30, not long after the lock downs began:
I was enjoying a long-anticipated vacation in Italy with my friend, Jane. We were visiting my son and daughter-in-law who were planning to live in Umbria (mid-Italy, not...
A Reflection on COVID-19 - Guest Post by Krishna Stone

Reflections on COVID-19 - Guest Post by Rosa E. Martinez-Colon

Reflections on COVID-19 - Guest Post by Nancy Duncan

As a woman...
Reflections on COVID-19 - Guest Post by Kathleen Pooler

As I write this post, I am sitting in a wheelchair in the rehab facility where I have been for two months to heal from a femur fracture sustained after a fall. I have plenty of idle time to immerse myself in the constant coverage of our current pandemic and reflect on what it all means. I’m a retired nurse...
Passing on the Lessons of the AIDS Epidemic

When I was writing Fag Hags, Divas and Moms: The Legacy of Straight Women in the AIDS Community, I sometimes heard the voices of the women whose stories I was sharing. It was more of a feeling that they were in the room, reading over my shoulder. I’d had something very specific in mind when I began, but that idea changed, in large part because these women guided me. They made it a much better book.
Many of the women are no longer alive, so they don’t have to face another worldwide pandemic. But I realized that they and the ones still with us have a lot to say.
Dr. Molly Cooke, on facing...
My Second Pandemic - Part 2

I was grateful that the response to that post was immediate and positive. I heard from other members of the HIV/AIDS community who were in a similar place. Our conversations, mostly on Facebook, were emotional and oddly uplifting: we’d discovered a new connection. I figured I said my piece and I was done.
In the past couple of weeks, articles have popped up on various websites. Most have been written by long-term survivors in the HIV/AIDS...
My Second Pandemic

It might have been the word ‘pandemic’.
It might have been ‘only certain people will get this virus, not me’.
It might have been stories of meal deliveries left on porches, or recommendations that counters and doorknobs be wiped down with disinfectants.
It might have been a Republican president indifferent at best to the suffering of those whose lives he did not consider important.
It might have been the blame, the pointing fingers, the demonizing.
It might have been the insistence of many people to carry on their lives as usual, no matter...
Still Connected, Even if Not Physically

Last week I was in New York, for what would turn out to be a five-day visit instead of a three-week trip to four cities. I’d been there less than 48 hours when the emails started popping up: cancellations and rescheduling. The one event that wasn’t cancelled was drastically downsized. My hotel was emptying quickly, crowds were disappearing. Everyone was scared. What would have been a busy and lucrative month was now a financial disaster. Fear of the unknown - and so much is unknown about COVID-19 - overwhelmed every other consideration.
Still, I remained oddly calm. All...
Why Women's History Month is Like A Treasure Hunt

Women’s History Month is like that, too. Just like February’s Black History Month, every day in March brings stories that are new to many and endlessly fascinating. Uncovering those jewels is critical to our understanding of the world.
This year marks the centennial of the 19th amendment, which finally gave women the right to vote. One hundred years ago, my grandparents were teenagers and young adults. It...