Steven Reigns reading at Fabulosa. Q&A with KM Soehnlein. Outliving Michael is a memorial memoir in poetry,
chronicling Steven Reigns’s profound friendship with
Michael Church, who died of AIDS in 2000. Through
vignettes and tender reflections, Reigns traces their
intergenerational bond, a connection of mentorship,
shared artistic pursuits, and the quiet acts of devotion
that shaped their lives as gay men in the 1990s. This deeply personal collection becomes both an elegy and an archive, honoring the countless roles played by a generation lost to AIDS: lover, sibling,parent, friend. Reigns preserves the texture of their companionship with unflinching honesty and lyricism,illuminating how certain people leave an indelible mark long after they are gone.Outliving Michael is a testament to friendship’s power to sustain, transform, and survive even death itself.