Katherine Linton

Katherine Linton is probably best-known to queer viewers as the former host and series producer of In the Life, a groundbreaking LGBTQ news show that ran for over 20 years on PBS (and the episodes can be viewed online via the UCLA Film & Television Archive). Since then, she’s carved out a highly-respected career as a go-to person for documentaries about a mixed bag of subjects. In 2004, Linton created her own company, the DUMBO-based Linton Media. Its first work was a documentary that had the distinction of also being the first show to ever air on LOGO: The Evolution Will be Televised. Her projects have also included the series Lesbian Sex & Sexuality for Here TV; Follow My Voice: With the Music of Hedwig, on New York’s Harvey Milk High School (for the Sundance Channel); Mississippi: I AM, about the changing nature of queer life in a conservative state, which featured the participation of Lance Bass; and several MTV True Life episodes on issues ranging from pill addiction to homelessness. “I am more interested in helping to broadcast the voices of people who have been marginalized for whatever reasons, or who don’t get heard often enough in our culture,” she says. Recently, she came back to where it all started for her, when she directed the first episode of The Great American Read, a series on literature, which premiered on PBS in May. —GH