memories
I’m so lucky to have been part of this community since the beginning. I met Riese before Autostraddle’s launch through my wife Carly, who was my very new girlfriend at the time. We were all in our mid-20s and had no fucking clue. We would hang out in a weird apartment in Trump Tower of all places, sitting around a large table with a pole running through the middle and talk about what this website would look like, what it would do and who it would serve. We threw pride parties and got drunk doing L Word recaps. In the beginning, I wrote a few articles and did photoshoots with folks like Kate McKinnon.
Early on I co-created (shout out to my stylist partner Sara Medd) a project called The Calendar Girls, which was a yearly photo/video project where we highlighted queer women each month. Most of these took place over a REALLY fun weekend in CA and queers would come in from all over the country to participate. My dream is to relaunch this project and make it more inclusive and get it funded!
Thank you to Riese, Laneia and all of the editors and writers and camp staff and designers and illustrators who have dedicated so much time and talent to building this incredible place!
Robin Roemer
Riese: i feel like i’ve been pretty calm about the website being broken
so far
Laneia: you have, yes
Riese: sometimes i feel like
we’re doing something wrong
like there’s something we do that other people don’t do that is the cause of all our problems
what is that thing
Laneia: i also feel this way
Riese: i think it might be that our business is growing
a lot, getting bigger and more complicated
but because of the nature of the industry
our income is not growing at that same pace
but our business is growing so fast!
Laneia: but our growth isn’t monetary
Riese: right
it’s weird that a business can grow without making more money
Laneia: like the internet isn’t set up for this
Riese: when will this feeling stop laneia
Laneia: camp
it will stop with camp
Riese: ok
—gchat, 2011