Todd Camp: The Founder of Q Cinema in Fort Worth, TX

Dallas followed Todd Camp's lead the year after he started a gay film festival in Fort Worth, TX. (Source: Steve Geer).

Camp, founder of Q Cinema, the annual event offering unique stories of our times, grew up in Corpus Christi and moved to Fort Worth to attend college as a journalism major at Texas Christian University (TCU) where he worked for the school paper all four years and won several journalism awards from headline writing to editorials.

He did editing, worked on the college magazine, and edited cartoons before he got a designer job at the Denton Record Chronicle. While employed there he worked with editing, cartoons, and movie reviews. (Source: Todd Camp).

Camp joined the Fort Worth Star-Telegram which had just started the Class Acts Magazine for young people. He worked with Class Acts for six years in design, writing, and as a back-up movie critic. He transferred to the Features Department and has now been with the paper 16 years, starting Q Cinema in 1999.

Now the video critic for the daily paper, Camp has won numerous journalism awards in cartooning, writing, and headline writing, including the Katy Award for the southwest region which covers five states. He was awarded in 2001 for "Confession of a Gay Eagle Scout," a column he wrote right after the Supreme Court ruled the Boy Scouts could prevent gay people from joining their organization. He had run into seven or eight scouts at a bar where he was talking to someone about the ruling which led to him writing his column.

"I've never put that much stock into awards," said Camp. "For me the thing I've always said working here is that if I ever stopping enjoying what I did, I'd stop. That's always been my barometer. It's a challenging, exhausting job. Sept. 11, 2001 was a particularly gut-wrenching day but it's also something to see co-workers rise to the occasion."

Camp, who started Q Cinema after getting involved with the Fort Worth Film Festival, said he's always been openly critical of the local gay community or lack thereof.