Literary Change

The above picture is of me as Condom Man, circa 1996. My power was to save the world through HIV prevention. I've been with the Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team (APAIT) for fifteen years now. It is Southern California's largest provider of HIV/AIDS services to the Asian Pacific communities. I am heartbroken to say that I'll be leaving this fine organization at the end of January.

I started this job when I was twenty-five. I wasn't even writing then. APAIT was made up of writers and other artists when I began. It fostered my creative endeavors. It was at APAIT when my co-worker writer Joel Tan handed me a flyer for a free writing workshop. That flyer began my writing life.

AIDS and art is something I care deeply about. When a position at UCLA's World Arts and Culture Department opened up, working for the Make Art/Stop AIDS (MA/SA) project, it felt right to apply.

MAKE ART/STOP AIDS is an international network of scholars, artists, and activists committed to ending the global AIDS epidemic. With more than 40 million people infected with HIV around the world, and with only approximately 1 million receiving state-of-the-art care, the need for such a network is urgent. MAKE ART/STOP AIDS is founded on the principle that artists are an essential part of anti-AIDS efforts. Artists are master communicators. The arts themselves carry enormous potential as tools of education and information-sharing. Thus, MAKE ART/STOP AIDS seeks to establish artists as key partners in AIDS interventions around the world. You can read more about them here.

I'll be their new Community Organizer. To blend my love for art and all things creative with a cause that is near and dear to me seemed too good to be true. Here's to change!