As part of a group of LGBTQ+ picturebook creators, I was recently interviewed by Publisher’s Weekly for Pride Month about Payden’s Pronoun Party and LGBTQ+ representation! Here are some quotes from the interview:

“I was inspired [to write Payden’s Pronoun Party] by the profound importance of young trans people having access to this kind of positive representation that acknowledges and respects them for who they are.”

“Payden’s Pronoun Party consciously represents an idealized world wherein all trans people are given the freedom to understand and express our identities.”

“I read blogs and watched vlogs of trans people with a range of identities discussing the experience of gender euphoria—the feeling of joy in getting to express our gender identities—and how they decided on their pronouns, which were the two main things I wanted to center in this picture book.”

“I hope to see a better range of representation. For gender diversity, that includes more books like Payden’s Pronoun Party, which is specifically about the experience of being trans/nonbinary, but also books where trans people are represented as main characters without the focus being on identity.”

You can read the full interview (and the interviews with the other LGBTQ+ creators) here!