From a Burning House: The AIDS Project Los Angeles Writers Workshop Collection: The AIDS Project Los Angeles Writers Workshop Collection

The AIDS Project Los Angeles Writers Workshop gathered their writings on the experiences lived during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 90s, poignantly capturing emotional heartbreak with compassion.

As the AIDS epidemic raged in the 1990s, people living with AIDS were beginning to become overshadowed by AIDS "the issue"—a topic for movies, political wrangling, and opinion polls. This powerful collection gives voice to the people—those with HIV, as well as their caregivers—who battled at the front line of the epidemic. It is an intense celebration of life led at the precipice.

The themes explored in From a Burning House are simple and universal: love, fear, friendship, loss. But these works possess a unique quality, as they describe a world that was on fire, a world where lives are quickened by the reality of AIDS. For the writers in the workshop, the creative process can be healing. For the reader, the result is profoundly moving; a tapestry of writings that is at once witty, wise, and a painfully vibrant connection to the way we live now.

Irene Borger is a journalist, fiction writer, and teacher. Her work has appeared in many national magazines and newspapers, including Vogue, Mirabella, Architectural Digest, the Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal. She was Artist-in-Residence at AIDS Project Los Angeles throughout 1990s, the same time when she founded the Writers Workshop.