Michael McColly spent two years in Peace Corps Senegal before moving to Chicago to study philosophy. "Both Senegal and Chicago were fertile grounds for an empty minded, small town, Midwestern white kid," explained McColly in an interview. "They turned me into a writer. They demanded that I ask more questions of myself and the world."
When he discovered that he was HIV positive years later, this life-altering moment propelled him into a career as both an activist and a writer.
McColly's activism and writing have created a committed reading community on the web. For that reason, I picked him for my deceptively simple feature: Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing.
Jason Boog:
You've built a very impressive website to showcase your work. How did this come together? How has it influenced your relationship with readers? What do you hope to do with the site in the future? My website is the creation of Hector Giuffre, a painter from Argentina who lives in Chicago now. It's a miracle that he did my site. He is an activist himself and he has been my guide and I'm grateful for him.
People check it out from everywhere. I wanted people to use it as a resource on how they could use yoga to help them with HIV. That was the initial purpose. Then it also became a way to project my writing and activism.
I hope it continues to grow. I want to put a documentary on it of a friend of mine. I see it as a network within the greater network of the Internet.
» Blogging HIV/AIDS Stories from ThePublishingSpot
While our week-long interview with activist and writer Michael McColly has focused on HIV/AIDS groups, there are many personal websites that record stories about living with HIV."Less Than 50" is a tough LiveJournal where an HIV-positive blo... [Read More]
Tracked on: May 25, 2006 11:35 AM | Permalink to Trackback