River Huston

​Through personal experiences I show you how to turn challenges into accomplishment, how choices, not circumstances, determine achievement and how to appreciate our differences instead of judging them. I am also from the future as you can tell from this photograph.

I lived an unconventional life and through these stories my hope is you see that life is good regardless of whatever challenge you face. My groups hve been as diverse as doctors, prisoners, researchers, little old ladies in rural churches across New Jersey. My biggest audience has always been students and the LGBT community. 

I have been arrested for obscenity, (doing a condom demonstration). Competed in a marathon at 200 pounds, dealt with alcoholism, lived with two terminal illnesses, worked as a dominatrix and had loads of fun with dating, marriage, divorce and financial ruin. And was still named Poet Laureate and given an honorary PhD from Albright College.

I eventually landed on a remote island in the Caribbean to become a successful painter and then on to the mountains of Central Mexico rescuing dogs and stray burros. People have called me unstoppable and outrageous, then called a cab. I also have a broken pussy and need to talk about it. 

Who Am I?

River Huston is an award winning poet, journalist, performer and painter.  She has been featured on Good Morning America, Showtime, Nightline, and CNN for her work. River has written three books of poetry and is the author of A Positive Life; Portraits of Women Living With HIV, The Goddess: A Guide to Feminine Wisdom. SEXED; Tales OF A Textrix.

​I am a long-term HIV/AIDS survivor, I was told I was going to die in 1991 and opps, here I am. Being a long term survivor has given me many skills including the ability to live in the moment. That means no plans and no funds. It also taught me to go for it and never to edit myself.  I did the things people would say, “You can’t make a living doing that.” But it never mattered; I became a poet, painter and performer. I survived clinical depression and now thrive on the joy of each day’s possibility.

I have performed my one-woman show, Sex, Cellulite and Large Farm Equipment: One Girls Guide to Living and Dying in theaters, conferences, hallways and colleges around the world. I currently paints in my studios in Mexico and Napa, CA but can’t resist getting on stage now and again to tell you about that date that turned into an armed robbery or growing weed when it was still illegal in the seventies, and so much more.