RIESE BERNARD
“I always wanted to run a magazine, but nobody would hire me to do that, and I didn’t have the patience or the social skills/charisma to work my way up,” says Riese Bernard. “So I started my own magazine.” The 34-year-old Michigan native is the co-founder, CEO, CFO and Editor-in-Chief of the GLAAD-Award-winning Autostraddle.com, the world’s most popular online community and website for LGBTQ women. She launched Autostraddle in 2009 after three successful years as a personal blogger and recapper of Showtime’s “The L Word.” Another of her projects is A-Camp, an annual week-long retreat in Southern California for 300 hundred queer women, non-binary and trans folks. A-Camp usually fills to capacity the day registration opens and has featured talented performers such as Jasika Nicole and Cameron Esposito. An accomplished writer, blogger, fiction author, copywriter and video editor, Bernard has seen her work published in nine books; numerous magazines; and all over the web, including Jezebel, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch and Emily Books. But it’s the sense of creating community that Bernard finds most gratifying. “[It’s rewarding to me when] readers and campers find community, make friends and feel okay about who they are because of Autostraddle and/or A-Camp.” –SLO
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