100 Women We Love 2011
It’s been a whirlwind year for Chely Wright. The award-winning country artist and songwriter stunned the conservative country music world by coming out in 2010, a difficult and life-changing decision she detailed in her 2011 autobiography, Like Me. She also released her critically-acclaimed seventh album, Lifted Off the Ground, a tour-de-force more than five emotionally-grueling years in the making. The documentary film, Wish Me Away, chronicles her journey from preparation to aftermath of her decision to come out to Nashville, her hometown, and within the LGBT community, will make its world premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival this summer. Her soul-searching, however, has been worth it: The newly-minted LGBT role model serves as the national spokesperson for the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and speaks out against school bullying. Wright believes “that to whom much is given, much is required. I have lived a very blessed life and I know what it feels like to achieve goals. I want to do my part in helping others have as many opportunities to have milestones in their lives too.” –KL
The 100 Women We Love – out artists, elected officials, business leaders, athletes, community activists – are role models for us all. Many are up-and-coming movers and shakers; some are at the zenith of their careers. Some of their achievements change our world and, just as importantly, others improve the world’s perception of out women. They all strive tirelessly to increase our visibility and continue our incredible progress toward equality and justice.
We proudly present the class of 2011, in random order, so each gets her well-deserved turn in the spotlight.
Christin Mell & Nicole Valentine
tellofilms.com, the brainchild of Christin Mell (left) and Nicole Valentine, is a web-based video distribution and production outfit for projects by, for, and about lesbians. It is a “team production” business model, they say, in which the money viewers pay to watch the projects gets channeled back to the artists so they can create more content. Founded in 2007 and based in Chicago, tellofilms.com has evolved with online video technology and does the back-end work for independent video makers all over the world. “We hear better ideas on the street than there will ever be room for on Network TV. Why should they go unproduced? We want to enjoy them!” say Mell and Valentine. These DIY experts are still humbled by their project. “We still look around and say, ‘this is so exciting! How did us nerds end up here?’…This has been a lot of hard work, but we started tellofilms.com to produce content we wanted to see and the site has become a forum for others to do the same. For us, it doesn’t get any better than that.” –KL
