In conversation with Rachel Plummer
Rachel Plummer is a poet, children’s author, and creative writing teacher living in Edinburgh. They have 2 children aged 14 and 9. Rachel’s latest book, The Big Day, tells the story of a child who receives an invitation to a wedding between 2 grooms - who also happen to be giants! We chat to Rachel about parenthood, writing, and the inspiration behind this magical and fun children’s tale.
Rachel: I kind of do storytelling both personally and professionally. For example, when my kids were little I would do a lot of storytelling with them. If there was anything that I wanted to teach or help or explain, or I would make a story about it. It's so much easier for children, I think, to understand something when you put it in that context.
When I do storytelling professionally I do a lot of traditional and folk stories. Especially Scottish ones. I started telling them but gender swapping a lot of the characters to make them look more like our family, or like families we knew. Just generally more inclusive and to reflect the world a bit better. Our world. My daughter’s world.
When my daughter was younger I was always looking for LGBT+ inclusive books to read to her as there weren't a huge number of them around. And the books that were around were often for very small children. They usually presumed that the person reading had almost never encountered an LGBT+ person before and so needed a primer on what that is. While it’s well intentioned, it then makes the book more for straight people rather than for you and your family. So it’s a bit othering, and it was also so meaningless to my daughter - who just wanted a normal story where queer people existed. And I really wanted queerness to simply exist in the universe of the story like it exists in the real world.
Lizzie: How did The Big Day come about?
Rachel: To sum up, I’d previously released a book called Wain - a collection of LGBT+ themed poetry for teens, based on retellings of Scottish myths. Later on, Little Tiger got in touch and asked if I’d thought about writing any of my poems in such a way that they could be put into a picture book. So I sent some over, and they decided to take on The Big Day!
Lizzie: What has the reaction to the book been like?
Rachel: It’s been overwhelmingly positive which is really nice. It's been lovely to have such a nice response from kids, because that is always the thing that means the most.
One of the best reviews I had was actually from my own son. He is still in a picture book age group as he is autistic and has an intellectual disability. He doesn’t always want a story but sometimes he does enjoy one at bedtime. On one occasion he noticed The Big Day on the shelf and chose that one as his bedtime story. He really loved it! He couldn't really understand that I'd written it, but it meant so much to me that he genuinely loved it.
The Big Day is now available in paperback and hardback from your local bookshop.
Alternatively, you can buy directly from Little Tiger online.
Lizzie: How did you approach writing The Big Day?
Rachel: I specifically wanted to not use any kind of LGBT+ terminology. I didn't use words like gay, lesbian, transgender…any of these specific terms, because sometimes I think storybooks can almost turn into a lesson or a thesaurus and that's not the point for me.
The idea is that this is a natural thing and it’s okay. Sometimes two people get married, and sometimes they're giants, and sometimes they're both men! It's fine. The other thing I wanted to do is when we made lesson activities that could be used in schools, I didn’t want to tell children what the story is about. If kids have an idea of what the story is about, even if it’s something different to what I intended, it's totally fine. Let’s just let them come to the story on their own terms.
Lizzie: And the characters in the book…?
Rachel: When working with our fabulous illustrator, Forrest Burdett, I explained how I wanted the main character [the child invited to the wedding] not to have a specific gender. In my head I think of them as nonbinary but they could be anything. I wanted kids to be able to see the main character and think of themselves, or think whatever they wanted, and to have their own idea of who that character is. So I try to let things like that be very open.
Lizzie: What does the grooms being giants add to the story?
Rachel: On a literal basis, the child and the mum might be a little bit scared. Perhaps they've heard bad things about giants? Maybe they're dangerous? But then they go to the wedding and it’s just nice and normal and fun. But the grooms being giants also works as a metaphor for being LGBT+ - and this also links back to the metaphoric nature of folk tales and storytelling in general that I enjoy so much.
Lizzie: Moving on to your own experiences now, can I ask about your journey to parenthood and what that was like for you?
Rachel: I always knew I wanted kids from a really young age. But when we were young, there was so much homophobia in society. The most taboo thing that you could be at school was to be gay. Calling someone gay or lesbian was the insult kids would say to each other.
So I was really anxious about it. My sexuality was this kind of secret I had. I knew I was interested in women but I was made to feel that was monstrous and terrible. I also thought it meant that I could never have a family and have kids. So sadly all I thought when I was younger was that I needed to hide it and make sure that nobody would ever know. I even looked into things like hypnotherapy and stuff even as a teenager, like a form of conversion therapy for myself. Thankfully I didn’t get far.
I’ve had a really good friend since my teenage years, Ian, who is the father of my kids. We had this pact that we both wanted to have kids. So that's what we did when we were a bit older! I was 26 when I had our eldest. We co-parent our children in the same house and we're very close. We're best friends. So it's an arrangement that works really well for us.
Lizzie: Have there been any challenges as an LGBT+ parent?
Rachel: Sometimes I’m cautious about talking about my family with other people because you never know how they are going to react. So in certain small, tight-knit groups of parents, I wouldn't ever lie but I might not be the one to mention it unless I knew someone really well. Especially in Home Ed settings where you can’t simply change groups if things don’t work out.
Lizzie: And are there any joys of LGBT+ parenthood that you’d like to mention?
Rachel: One of the nicest and most exciting things for me, like my son choosing my book from the shelf, is that we often go out to a shopping center or something. My daughter and her friends will go window shopping while the other parents and I sit in a cafe. Lately, she and her friends love to go into any book shop they see and try to find The Big Day - because I dedicated it to her and her brother. She takes a picture of it on the shelves and sends it to us because she’s so proud. I did wonder if she might find it desperately uncool, but happily she doesn't!
Lizzie: Is there any message you would like to pass on to any LGBT+ people considering parenthood?
Rachel: Just to do it! You won't regret it. And don't listen to people who don't know what they're talking about!
When I was pregnant with my eldest my sister said something that was well intentioned, but really hurtful. It was around how wanting to become a parent as a queer person was selfish, and why would I do that to a child? She imagined this future where I could never tell anybody in case my child was bullied and all that kind of stuff. I remember thinking at the time, that's not even how the world works! If someone is going to bully you, they'll find something to bully you for. And the way to deal with bullies isn't to just give up in advance!
So that’s my message to any would-be parents. Just do it and it will be easier and better than you think.