And then, like I said, won a National Book Award last year. She wanted to be an author, so she left the safety of a world she’d helped build and wrote more and more and more books. And the whole time she was changing the landscape of lesbian media, and helping me become a real writer, she was writing her first book, Ash, a lesbian retelling of Cinderella that became one of the first LGBTQ+ YA novels to ever be published. The one thing I had going for me was that I had a voice, and Malinda kept pulling it out of me, no matter how much work it took on her end. She convinced the straight Lena Headey to interview with her because of Imagine Me & You, another near-impossibility for queer media back then (and she ended up doing it inside a photo booth on the Santa Monica pier ’cause it’s the only place they could make it work with their schedules).Įverything Malinda edited of mine became smarter, funnier, more moving, more convincing, more… me. She got accepted into the Television Critics Association, something that was nearly impossible to do if you didn’t work for a print newspaper or magazine at the time. She did things no one had ever done before.
#Gay pride background portrait full
She was so fierce, so uncompromising in her standards for herself and our team, so driven in her pursuit of lesbian visibility on TV and in movies and books, full of curiosity and compassion. I had never in my life met a woman like her. My boss’ boss was Malinda Lo, now a National Book Award-winning YA author.
#Gay pride background portrait how to
When I started writing professionally in 2008, I had exactly zero experience outside of telling stories on my personal blog, and, to be completely honest with you, I got the writing gig because I was a nice and funny commenter who knew how to use Photoshop.
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If you’re a lesbian reading this roundtable we hope you had a chocolate bar today! Or that you get to have a really relaxing night under a blanket with a book.
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Everyone hopped in to respond and our editor-in-chief Carmen made the graphics (so please be kind!). We decided that you did not have to be a lesbian to join in on this celebration of visible lesbians, just wiling to share the love. Thank you for being a lighthouse that we can model the lives after, even just a little bit.
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Thank you for making our day brighter or thank you for changing how we think about things. Our managing editor Kayla, master of puns, thought of it first: Lesbianspiration! Who have we looked up, been inspired by, or admired? Who are the lesbians, either in our daily lives or far away - or, be real, don’t even know us - that we want to just take a moment and say thanks. And we spent a lot of time thinking about - just how stop and can we celebrate the lesbians in our lives, you know? Now obviously we celebrate lesbians every day at Autostraddle, but also that background hum of “let’s go lesbians” can always stand to be turned up a notch. Well friends, Lesbian Visibility Week is once again upon us.
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Graphic: Autostraddle // Photo of Cheryl Dunye by Michael Tran/Getty Images and Audre Lorde by Jack Mitchell/Getty Images The 200 Best Lesbian, Bisexual & Queer Movies Of All Time.LGBTQ Television Guide: What To Watch Now.