[ The Blood Jet Writing Hour with Rachelle Cruz

Join Rachelle as she Talks to John Boucher and Sylvia Sukop John Boucher started writing in 2005 in HIV+ Writing Workshops sponsored by AIDS Healthcare Foundation, AIDS Project Los Angeles, and the LA Gay & Lesbian Center. His first published piece, “Speaking in Tongues,” appeared in Washburn University’s inscape literary journal, where it won the Best Nonfiction of 2009 award. A 2009 PEN Center USA Emerging Voice Rosenthal Fellow, John is compiling a collection of humorously dark nonfiction stories. John attended Corcoran College of Art and Design and earned his MFA from Claremont Graduate University. Born in 1962 and raised in Los Angeles, John lives in West Hollywood. Sylvia Sukop writes about art, faith, community, and other good causes. Photography has been an integral part of her own journey as an artist and storyteller. A first-generation American raised in rural Pennsylvania, she is a graduate of Bucknell University and of New York University’s joint Master's program with the International Center of Photography. In 1995-96 she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study photography in Germany. She moved to Los Angeles in 1997 where she provides professional communications support to nonprofit cultural and philanthropic organizations. In 2007 she founded Boulevard Without Borders, a collaboration among artists and teenagers from 10 Los Angeles high schools documenting the diverse communities along LA’s Pico Boulevard. The project was featured in “LA Flash” at Los Angeles County Museum of Art in September 2008. In 2009 Sukop received PEN USA’s Emerging Voices Fellowship in support of her creative nonfiction writing. Her work has appeared in Flaunt and Exposure magazines, and on the political blog, The Huffington Post. She is currently working on a memoir of her teenage brother’s death and on the story of the modern-day lesbian community on Lesbos Island. Photos