Through the Memoirists Collective, I met a young writer named Ilana Jacqueline on MySpace awhile ago, and recently she interviewed me for a publication called Today’s Teen.

When I started my first web site, named in honor of Kurt Cobain, I wasn’t quite a teen anymore, though I’d just turned 20. The last thing I’d written before those early HTML codes was an extensive report on the Iliad in the tenth grade. After that, anytime an assignment required more than a couple of pages of b.s., I’d slide it Mom’s way.


I knew back in ’96 that the whole HIV-infection-as-a-kid angle would spare me any overt abuse, but I also understood that my shoot-from-the-hip style might not go down too well with my fellow positoids’ antiretrovirals. Overall, the reaction was good, and as a result my love for writing- which I didn’t even know existed until I put up that web site- flourished.


The Nirvana lyric that I stole MPV from states: “I own my own pet virus, I get to pet and name her.” And through writing my experiences in my own voice, I did just that.


Not enough ruminations for you? Then go read my interview with Ilana by clicking the magazine. Oh, and if you could keep the info on my Mom writing some of my reports on the DL I’d appreciate it, as I don’t want my high school diploma to be rescinded.


Positively Yours,
Shawn