Martina Clark, winner of the 2021 POZ Award for Best in Literature, has written for The Southampton Review, The Manifest-Station, Lowestoft Chronicle, and Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel, among others, and in 2014 she won Silver for Funny Travel in the SOLAS Awards for Best Travel Writing. She holds a BA in International Relations from San Francisco State University and an MFA in Creative Writing and Literature from Stony Brook University and writes memoir, personal essays, and travel narratives. She worked for the United Nations system (including UNAIDS, UNICEF, and the Department of Peace Operations) for two decades and now teaches writing, critical reading, and global politics through the College Now program at LaGuardia Community College for CUNY. She has been living with HIV for more than half her life – 29 years and counting – and survived COVID-19 in 2020. Martina has traveled to more than 90 countries and conducted condom demonstrations in at least 50 of them. She's traveled by boat, bus, and plane, but never by elephant or camel.