Hello, I'm Shannon Beverage and welcome to The Alphabet Club, a queer storytelling

podcast where every other week I will curate a personal essay by someone in our community,

stories about desire, heartbreak, gender, sex, friendship, family, and becoming.

After the reading, we sit with it together, we talk about what it brings up, what it reflects back to us, and why queer stories

just feel different. This week's essay is called Our Battle with AIDS by Kendall D. Smith.

It is written in loving memory of Kendall's partner, Stephen Ray Sansom. Yes, this essay is heartbreaking, but it is also

the most beautiful tribute to one of the most selfless and beautiful love stories I've ever heard.

I think now, more than ever, we need to hear stories from queer activists during these

transformative moments in LGBTQ plus history to remind us of the resilience and bravery we come from and what we have to lose.

Kendall is the artistic director at Swamplight Theater in Louisiana, a performing arts center

for people of all ages built around the fundamental beliefs that we all have something beautiful

worth sharing. We'll put a link below if you'd like to donate to Swamplight and you can follow

Kendall on TikTok at Kendall Smith.

I just want to mention before this episode that this is our first remote recording of Alphabet Club.

So give us some grace with our technological skills.

I think we did a great job with what we were working with.

But yes.

And this is also a good example for you to see how this podcast can work remotely.

So if you are someone who has been thinking about writing an essay in and you're like, wait, but I don't live in New York, that does not matter.

Kendall did this interview from Louisiana.

So wherever you are, it's possible to be a part of the Alphabet Club and to share your essay. So enjoy this week's episode. And thank you so much for watching, listening, being here. Okay. Shout out to Tomboy X for sponsoring this week's episode of Alphabet Club.

And I just wanted to quickly say a thank you to them because they've been sponsoring me for so long.

...