BAM! It's an update on me!

I'm leaving my job at end of year, diving into writing & research at the CUNY Biography and Memoir (BAM) program

Made my first visit to the archives at the New York Public Library last month; eager for more.

As many of you know, I am co-founder and co-director of Strategies for High Impact and Long COVID Justice. Today we put out notice that I will be leaving my position at end of the year, so I wanted to share that here as well.

But a few more details about what I’ll be doing. In September, I began classes at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center's Biography and Memoir program. I will be taking time to focus on that work in 2025, including posting here at least every other week.

This term, I’m in two courses that are starting the paths I’ll be following in my time at CUNY:

I am working on a paper for David S Reynold’s Mining the Archives, Reimagining the Past course, focused on the ACT UP People with Immune System Disorders (PISD) caucus. I believe it was founded primarily by ACT UP members from Left movement backgrounds, like Ferd Eggan, and was conceptualized, in part, as a cross-illness and cross-gender caucus including lesbians with chronic fatigue (one of my diagnoses). I want to look at this for insight into how we do and don’t bridge across conditions and issues in times of mass suffering and death. Have info on the PISD Caucus? DM me!

For Julia Rodas’ Disability Memoir course, I am looking at my own “How to have sex in the coronavirus pandemic” piece I posted right here on Substack in March 2020 and sharing if/how I practice what I preached, interweaving a set of personal sex and kink stories with associated disability justice and literary analysis.

I feel incredibly lucky to be able to have this opportunity, having dropped out of public health grad school in 1993 or so to focus on ACT UP. And also, as noted below, to be leaving our project with such great leadership.

More soon, I promise… And if you know others interested in these topics, as well as our ongoing fight against COVID-19 and the Long COVID crisis, let them know about my newsletter - thanks.

And if you are able to, please join me in donating to Strategies for High Impact/ Long COVID Justice to support our crucial work.

Here’s the notice we put out today:

As a longtime organizer for health justice, it is an honor to be a part of disability justice movements and efforts to confront the Long COVID crisis. Today, I am writing to let you know I will be leaving my staff position at Strategies for High Impact and Long COVID Justice at the end of the year, though I will remain an advisor in an auxiliary capacity.

I’m delighted to announce that our co-director Emi Kane will become the director of S4HI and LCJ. She will continue to anchor the organization, along with our communications and narrative work and BIPOC Fellows program. Our senior fellow Gabriel San Emeterio will continue to focus on our NYC efforts and our HIV Complexities Project, Voula O’Grady will continue to manage our resources, digital publications and presence, and community engagement, and Brunem Warshaw will continue to keep things rolling as our administrative and operations coordinator.

It’s a time with many challenges on the horizon. I don’t need to tell any of you how crucial this work is.

I am so grateful to be leaving the project in such good hands, with full confidence that this team, working with our program collaborators and contractors, will not only sustain but expand our vital efforts in the years ahead.

Through our education efforts, communications and narrative work, and organizing and policy work, S4HI/LCJ is rising up for justice and care today, while fighting for the future we all need.

I’m proud of our pivotal work, including our central Pandemics are Chronic statement, the new Long COVID Essentials resource pages (in collaboration with The Sick Times), and our federal and local advocacy efforts including pushing for crucial changes to the NIH RECOVER program. And in the months ahead, I’m looking forward to the release of our action plan on Long COVID in NYC, and a vibrant online hub for our Listening for the Long Haul oral histories (in partnership with University of Illinois Chicago).

Thanks so much for your support and partnership,

JD

Co-director, Strategies for High Impact / Long COVID Justice