I can’t think of more important reasons than those! Which mentor texts (if any) did you use to help you write this story? If this story can show one soul, I SEE you, YOU are loveable, if it can inspire one non-queer kid to kindness and acceptance… that would be everything. For all the kids who aren’t loved no matter what, and who aren’t safe. I especially wrote Love, Violet for them. Too many of my friends and students and the young LGBTQIAP2+ people seeking shelter at Thrive Youth Center have stories that would chill your blood. This just isn’t true for many queer kids. Plus, I came out as an adult, so when my income vanished, when relationships rocked, I had agency and safety nets, and other supportive community. I also had protection as a feminine female, as white and middle class, and until recently, as able and well.

My other “gay agenda” (haha!) is to support kids whose road is thornier than mine. I wanted to create a book to let kids see themselves and each other, to say love IS possible. But I didn’t understand it because I had never seen stories that showed me this kind of love-or person-could exist! True or false, our stories frame our sense of reality. When it finally ( finally!) dawned on me in my early thirties that I was gay (while married and a faculty member at a religious college, by the way), my next question was… how did I not know?! Because when I looked back, all the evidence was there, right back to baby crushes on girls when I was little. Can you tell us what inspired you to write it?

Hi Charlotte, it’s a pleasure to have you on my blog! Love, Violet, is a beautiful story of the love that one young girl, Violet, feels for Mira, another girl in her class, and of her struggle to overcome a fear of rejection in order to reveal her love.

Love violet picture book