READ TO ME from... To End a Plague by Emily Bass

I met author Emily Bass in 1996, right around the time she was meeting AIDS activists in New York City.

I met Em when we were summer camp counselors together.

Neither of us knew that we’d become longtime friends. Neither of us knew that she was right at the inception of a 20-plus year journey to research, report, and write her book, her first book, her book that’s out this week, the book called TO END A PLAGUE: America’s Fight to Defeat AIDS in Africa.

Today, we get to celebrate Emily and her book — and read an excerpt from a stunning chapter called Small Heavens. Here we’re in Uganda in the early 2000s, just as PEPFAR, a massive American program to deliver AIDS drug treatment in Africa, is rolling through. From vivid sensory details to a global understanding of foreign aid to a reverence for the bodies that live these events, Emily gives us the world. Let’s go read with her.

Join READ TO ME this summer to write your book. Or blog post! Or journal! At READ TO ME Literary Arts salons, workshops, and coaching sessions, we know you can write amazing things — and so you do. www.readtomepod.com