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A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS, and Survival

Veteran AIDS activist Sean Strub authored the memoir "BODY COUNTS: A Memoir of Activism, Sex, and Survival."
Sean Strub
Veteran AIDS activist Sean Strub authored the memoir "BODY COUNTS: A Memoir of Activism, Sex, and Survival."
Veteran AIDS activist Sean Strub authored the memoir "BODY COUNTS: A Memoir of Activism, Sex, and Survival."
Credit Sean Strub
Veteran AIDS activist Sean Strub authored the memoir "BODY COUNTS: A Memoir of Activism, Sex, and Survival."

Author and aids activist Sean Strub

  

Sean Strub is best known as the founder of POZ magazine and the first openly HIV-positive person to run for Congress. 

But his new memoir, Body Counts: A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS and Survival (Scribner/2014) is a personal account that shows Strub’s experience with AIDS paralleling the evolving politics and policies of the epidemic. Strub details life as a young political junkie in the closeted world of powerful gay men in D.C. The work also reveals the trauma of watching his friends die around him during the heart of the epidemic and his own near-death struggle and recovery. Strub has been a central force in AIDS activism throughout his life through involvement in ACT UP, and is now the director of The Sero Project, a national network of people combating HIV/AIDS stigma and injustice. 

Host Frank Stasio talks to Strub about his life, work and reflections on the status of the epidemic today. Strub will be reading from his memoir at The Regulator Bookshop in Durham tonight at 7 p.m.

In his conversation on air, Strub detailed a memorable moment from his career as an activist during one of the most famous ACT UP (The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) demonstrations:

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Anita Rao is the host and creator of "Embodied," a live, weekly radio show and seasonal podcast about sex, relationships & health. She's also the managing editor of WUNC's on-demand content. She has traveled the country recording interviews for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department, founded and launched a podcast about millennial feminism in the South, and served as the managing editor and regular host of "The State of Things," North Carolina Public Radio's flagship daily, live talk show. Anita was born in a small coal-mining town in Northeast England but spent most of her life growing up in Iowa and has a fond affection for the Midwest.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.