Marie Lyn Bernard[1] (born 1981), known professionally as Riese Bernard, is an American writer and digital media executive. She is best known as the CEO and co-founder of the lesbian and queer women's interest website Autostraddle. Bernard received a 2017 GLAAD Media Award nomination for her article, “105 Trans Women On American TV: A History and Analysis”.[2]
Early life and educationedit
Bernard was born and raised in Michigan.[3] Her father, Victor L. Bernard, a scholar, researcher and professor in the field of financial statement analysis, died of a heart attack when she was 14 years old. Her mother came out to her as gay shortly after her father's death.[4][5]
In 2007, Bernard created The Road Best Straddled, a spin-off of her personal blog This Girl Called Automatic Win, to recap The L Word, then in its fourth season.[8] This led to collaborations with The L Word Online and Showtime and her blogs gained sizeable followings.[9][10] She also interned at the now-defunct website Nerve and worked for the Donald Maass Literary Agency.[11]
At the end of the final season of The L Word in 2009, she created Autostraddle.com with her then-girlfriend Alex Vega, with the intention of creating a digital website focused on gay women. Bernard stated she was inspired to create the website because nothing else like it existed at the time.[10] The website received a GLAAD Media Award in 2015 and receives 4 million unique page views per month.[8] In 2012, she created A-Camp, an annual 5-day "curated conference/camp/retreat combo" for queer women and trans people, located in Ojai, California.[16][17]
Personal lifeedit
Bernard first began to identify as a bisexual, and then as a lesbian, in her twenties.[8] Bernard is Jewish.[7] She is divorced and lives in Los Angeles.
^Allen, Samantha (2016-09-22). "AfterEllen Is Shutting Down: Is This the End of Lesbian Media?". Retrieved 2019-05-22.
^"How Autostraddle's Riese Bernard Forever Changed the Queer Media Landscape". them. 20 June 2018. Retrieved 2019-05-21.
^ abHymowech, Gabby; Jackson, S. E. (2016-06-30). "100 Women We Love 2016 | Page 84 of 98". GO Magazine. Retrieved 2019-05-21.
^Dupont, Nicole (April 4, 1994). "A Tribute to Professor Victor Bernard". The Monroe Street Journal. Archived from the original on April 16, 2018. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
^"Riese Bernard, episode #57 of Queery with Cameron Esposito on Earwolf". www.earwolf.com. Retrieved 2019-05-22.