Ian is the director of The Reading Realm, a platform dedicated to helping children develop reading for pleasure, grammar, and spelling. Download The Reading Realm app, here! Ian is also an educational consultant, primary school teacher, and author!!
Author of The Woodcutter and the Snow Prince, Violet’s Tempest, Nen and the Lonely Fisherman, Glitter Boy, and Rory’s Room of Rectangles.
Tell us about yourself and your journey to becoming an author?
My journey to becoming an author was long, painful, and difficult! I was actually a primary school teacher for thirteen years and loved modelling writing to the children, sharing stories with them, and watching them develop their own original voice when writing. I tried to get published for eight years and lost count of the number of rejections I got! SO MANY! To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what I was doing and just kept sending the same two or three picture books off to agents and publishers. I felt like these were ‘my’ stories and I couldn’t possibly write anything else. It wasn’t until I placed these stories down and moved away from them that I realised I could write about other things! You almost have to grieve the loss of your stories sometimes in order to be able to move on and craft new things. Once I’d done that, I found I was inspired to write about things that really mattered to me: the LGBTQ+ community, being a gay man, adopting a child.
I was actually just about to give up on the whole process in October 2020 and had said to my husband that I was going to go back to teaching full time and give up on the dream of becoming a children’s author. However, he told me to keep going and a month later I’d signed my first picture book, Violet’s Tempest! You never know what’s around the corner! Perseverance, stubbornness, and determination play a big part in your success I think.
What was your inspiration behind writing Glitter Boy?
Glitter Boy began life as a picture book called Mr. Hamilton’s wedding and gradually developed from there! It was inspired by my own experiences of homophobic bullying in secondary school and my career as a primary school teacher. I used to hear a lot of kids say, “Oh, that’s so gay!” to describe something as ‘rubbish’ and it really bothered me. My husband and I had just adopted our little baby boy too, so I was thinking a lot about the relationship between fathers and sons and this is a thread that’s explored throughout the story.
Essentially Glitter Boy is about the impact bullying has on an 11 year old boy called James. James loves singing, dancing, poetry and Mariah Carey! The book explore show James overcomes feelings of being on the outside, of being vilified and whispered about, and of being told he isn’t good enough. It’s a hopefully, joyous book about standing up for yourself, friendship, and LGBTQ+ history and pride.
How has it felt to see Glitter Boy have such a huge impact on children’s and even adult lives?
The reactions have been amazing! I always find it such a nerve-wracking process! I think releasing any book out into the world is a rollercoaster of emotions. There’s all the gruelling work that goes into the book, the excitement of publication day, the worries about school visits, and the concerns about how an LGBTQ+ middle grade book will be received.
However, I did get to go onto ITV News and talk about Glitter Boy, homophobic bullying, and Section 28. This was a real highlight for me!
The best thing has to be hearing from young readers though – it’s so special when your book speaks directly to someone and they find it a comfort. Lots of people in the LGBTQ+ community have reached out to me to tell me how much they loved Glitter Boy and that means an awful lot.
The best moment for me was on World Book Day when I was sent a photo of a young boy who was dressed up as James, the main character. His mum had made him a jacket covered in Mariah Carey artwork, he was wearing glitter and nail varnish and had the BIGGEST smile on his face. He’d been going through a really tough time and his mum was really emotional to see him so happy and free.
Do you have anything exciting in the pipeline for the year ahead?
So many exciting projects coming up! I’m just about to release my next picture book with Owlet Press, which is called Rory’s Room of Rectangles. It’s illustrated by Jessica Knight and is about blended families, stepdads, big feelings, and the power of art. It’s quite an unusual book in that I’m not sure we’ve seen a picture book explore these themes before!
I’m also starting work on my next middle grade book, which I’m really excited about and have signed contracts for new LGBTQ+ fairy tales. It’s all been a bit of a blur to be honest, but I’m feeling very lucky and grateful! It’s going to be a very busy few years!
What's one piece of advice you'd pass onto aspiring writers?
I think my writing really developed and matured when I began reading lots of poetry. For example, when I was writing my award-winning picture book, I read a lot of children’s poems about the sea and the beach. When I wrote Glitter Boy, I read a lot of poetry by queer writers and a lot of poems about feelings and emotions. There’s something about immersing myself in rich vocabulary and beautiful poems that really inspires me! I was really pleased to be able to challenge myself in Glitter Boy and write lots of poems from James’s perspective and have them woven through the story, developing the characters, and helping to show how James is feeling at certain points.
Watch Ian read Nen and the Lonely Fisherman on Moon Lane TV, here!!
And check out Ian’s socials below: