I remember hearing the news about Rutgers student Tyler Clementi’s suicide last September—how he jumped from the George Washington Bridge after fellow students streamed video of him in bed with another man. I didn’t know his pain, but it still left me raw. He must have felt so alone.

But you don’t need to feel helpless, says Seattle’s Dan Savage and his partner Terry Miller. That same month, they created a YouTube video titled, simply, “It Gets Better” (see below), in which they told their own stories about coming out and encouraged LGBT youth to stay true to themselves in the face of bullying—because life does indeed “get better.” The video got more than 1 million hits, and counting.

It spawned the It Gets Better Project, with 10,000 video messages of support coming from people around the world, celebrities gay and straight (Tim Gunn, Ellen DeGeneres, Anne Hathaway, Sarah Silverman), politicians, even President Obama. And on March 22, Savage and Miller kicked off a book tour in New York behind a new collection of essays, It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying and Creating a Life Worth Living. Watch the video below for highlights from the book, which is on sale now. Proceeds go to charities that support LGBT youth.

If you can’t make it to Town Hall tonight (March 29) to hear KUOW reporter Liz Jones interview Savage and Miller about the project, there’s a Portland event scheduled for April 21. Find out more on the Making it Better blog.