Queer Women We Love, Red Hot Entrepreneurs, Wonder Women

Workin’ It 2011

September 19, 2011 Liz Gold

The Real L Word fans know Romi Klinger from her spot on the Showtime reality series, but this Pasadena, Calif.-born jewelry designer has lived a best-seller life since growing up in the care of two mothers and a father. Our cover girl has been a successful makeup artist, an apothecary buyer for Kitson, a co-creator of the famed lesbian event company PYT and a blogger at tenderomi.com. This year, Klinger and Vanessa Salazar founded HIJA Por Vida, a jewelry and accessories line exclusively sold through Love and Pride. Now solo, Klinger is moving forward with Casa Por Vida, her own jewelry brand inspired by Mexican and Native American designs. Her Web site, casaporvida.com, launches this month. “The best part of owning my own business is that I’m my own boss and I get a chance to do what I love,” Klinger says. “We make all these items by hand on our living room floors. So far, we’ve lost a lot of sleep—but, we’re hustlers and hard-workers. The fact is, when you believe in your product, work is a pleasure.”

2011’s Red Hot Entrepreneurs

Before Merrill Sterritt launched Film Presence, a marketing and outreach company that combines event-based theatrical screenings with strong outreach partnerships, she had to let go of her sense of security. Just prior to founding her own business in 2010, Sterritt spent three years working with Women Make Movies, a leading distributor of films by and about women; she also worked as an editor on films that have premiered at Sundance and the Palm Springs International Film Festival. She felt the next step was to branch out on her own. “Making the choice to give up a lot of stability to do something I really wanted to do felt very proactive and satisfying, so I just went for it,” she says. Since then, Film Presence has been busy managing outreach projects for Frederick Wiseman’s La Danse, Nicole Opper’s Off and Running and Lucy Walker’s Academy Award-nominated Waste Land. “Sometimes you have to take projects you don’t love to pay the bills,” says Sterritt. “But my partner [Sara Kiener] and I decided our cut-off would be if a project was offensive to us. It’s very empowering to say, ‘I can’t get behind that, so I won’t.’”