When I started writing professionally in 2008, I had exactly zero experience outside of telling stories on my personal blog, and, to be completely honest with you, I got the writing gig because I was a nice and funny commenter who knew how to use Photoshop. My boss’ boss was Malinda Lo, now a National Book Award-winning YA author. I had never in my life met a woman like her. She was so fierce, so uncompromising in her standards for herself and our team, so driven in her pursuit of lesbian visibility on TV and in movies and books, full of curiosity and compassion. She did things no one had ever done before. She got accepted into the Television Critics Association, something that was nearly impossible to do if you didn’t work for a print newspaper or magazine at the time. She convinced the straight Lena Headey to interview with her because of Imagine Me & You, another near-impossibility for queer media back then (and she ended up doing it inside a photo booth on the Santa Monica pier ’cause it’s the only place they could make it work with their schedules).
Everything Malinda edited of mine became smarter, funnier, more moving, more convincing, more… me. The one thing I had going for me was that I had a voice, and Malinda kept pulling it out of me, no matter how much work it took on her end. And the whole time she was changing the landscape of lesbian media, and helping me become a real writer, she was writing her first book, Ash, a lesbian retelling of Cinderella that became one of the first LGBTQ+ YA novels to ever be published. She wanted to be an author, so she left the safety of a world she’d helped build and wrote more and more and more books. And then, like I said, won a National Book Award last year. But that’s not even all! While she’s been creating this whole catalogue of gay fiction, she’s been relentlessly pushing the publishing world to the level of diversity it’s at now, something that seemed impossible to imagine when I picked up her first book at Barnes and Noble over a decade ago.
Malinda brings math to the party, stats to the party, all from research she’s done herself, while carving out a career in a punishing industry. She is one of those very rare people who pulls other people into her success, who breaks down walls and then invites other marginalized creators through. She’s also been vocal in the fight to take back the word “lesbian” from anti-trans bigots, long before we got to the place we’re at today, where they’re thriving and writhing in the gutter, screeching about whatever jackassery of the day.
Malinda is one of the lesbians who has changed my life the most, a credit to the word “lesbian,” one of my personal heroes, one of my favorite writers, the first person to tell me it was cool to love stories loudly — and I will be forever grateful for her example and empowerment.
Comments
Casey! Valerie! Thank you, truly. 🧡
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SHELLI I LOVE YOUR ANSWER SO MUCH!
I also love all these answers. Happy Lesbian Visibility Day <3
Shelli I am inspired by your answer!!
SHELLI <3 <3 <3 <3
These were all so very heartwarming and lovely. Whenever I need inspiration I almost always look to you wonderful people❤️
as a bisexual who also loves and is inspired by lesbians (i see you casey!) i would merely say that this is the loveliest and indeed most inspiring thing i’ve seen in a long time 💜
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I had totally forgotten about Annie on My Mind, but I now realize I read it in middle school before I knew I was gay, in maybe 2007, and don’t know if I even clocked it after the fact. Thanks for the reminder, Ro! I gave a little telepathic thank you to Nancy Garden just now.
Carmen – I needed to hear Lorde’s words today. These lines rocked my world, shifted my plane of existence 90°: “Each time you love, love as deeply as if it were forever / Only, nothing is eternal.” As someone going through a breakup yet feeling grateful for the deep connection we shared for almost 10 years, and who felt the same way about the previous partner of 5 years, and all who came before that: YES. THIS.
This is fantastic and brought much joy to my day, thank you
thank you preteen Shelli!!!!
This is so wonderful!