Today is World AIDS Day

[pegkerr]

I'm thinking about Elias Latham and Sean Donnelly today, and how writing about them changed my life. It's so strange: they are fictional characters, but they have become so real to both me and other people, so that we think of them today with love. I have had so many people tell me that reading The Wild Swans brought home for them the reality of the AIDS epidemic in a way they had never understood before.

The curse has not yet been broken, and there is still so much to do. Please keep AIDS-related charities in mind as you consider your year-end charitable donations. See the Google page which has been set up for World AIDS Day to learn more (hey, moony! There's a message from Bono!).

If you purchased a copy of The Wild Swans you might be pleased to know that I tithed my proceeds from the sale of that book: 25% of my tithe went to PFLAG, 50% went to AMFAR, which is searching for a cure, and 25% was donated to the Quilt.

Comments

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I do hope you find your [fiction] voice again someday ... but if you never do, Elias Latham and Sean Donelly are quite a thing to have birthed into the world. A conversation can thwack a person sideways, but a book can thwack a whole *bunch* of people similarly, and I htink that one probably did. (It thwacked me and I know I'm far from the only one; I'm extrapolating to the whole bunch.) Who knows, maybe it will impact a critical mass of people, enough to effect real change - or maybe it will be one of a group of things that imapct enough people.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Bless you, Peg. Thank you for writing that book.

[aome.livejournal.com]

My donation this year will be my leftover valganciclovir - the US does not permit donation of unused (opened) medicine, but other countries allow it, so I'm hoping my (very VERY expensive) medicine will be put to good use by someone with CMV (a common virus for AIDS patients) in another country. Am currently researching AIDS-aid organizations that take such donations (more phonecall/online frustrations - doesn't anyone return messages anymore??) so I can send my pills off, rather than have them go to waste on my counter.

And - wow, that's so cool about the tithing.

[aeditimi.livejournal.com]

I'm very pleased to know about your donations! I bought the book not knowing that, but I'm all the happier your proceeds went to such good organizations.

[cph9680.livejournal.com]

Your charity and your writing are phenomenal! That is by far the best book I have ever read

[airemay.livejournal.com]

Wow, I didn't know you tithed your proceeds! That's really, really awesome.

The Wild Swans is incredible. I rec it to anyone I know, basically. Thank you for writing it. :D

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I'm very please to hear about the donations you made from The Wild Swans, especially the donation to the Quilt.

Slightly off topic, but I've a photograph from the 89 Quilt display that I wanted to get to you. Did I ever do that? If not, I still want to get it to you.

Actually, I should get around to posting all of 'em in my LJ gallery.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

That book... sat in the back of my brain for a while, and the next weekend I went to see Rent with family, and so it was a weird little stew of associations. Which is a good thing, a very good thing, from a very good book.

[elements.livejournal.com]

Peg, I just wanted to say that this once again shows what a wonderful and caring person you are. I know you get down sometimes... look at amazing things you've done in your life, creating this book that touched people in a way that really matters, and being generous with your profits, are just some of the ways that you've truly helped to make the world a better place.