Clara Vulliamy: On representing Trans and Non-Binary children in fiction, and remembering Shirley Hughes
It’s a huge responsibility being a children’s author, particularly when your mum is Shirley Hughes. But Clara Vulliamy, a celebrated author and illustrator in her own right, sees it as a privilege. And she is on a mission.
Clara is a staunch Trans rights activist and is passionate about celebrating Trans and Non-Binary children in stories. She has been on the receiving end of horrific online abuse for her opinions. At the time of our interview, she had just locked her Twitter account again because the volume of threatening messages she was receiving was "getting ridiculous".
"I won't say who, but some of them are from authors," she says. "That is something the publishing industry has to face up to - it can't keep turning a blind eye to the fact there are children's authors who [spout] really vile transphobia from 'within the room' in publishing. And it's so important publishers don't accommodate that, and I'm prepared to speak out about that too - it's so important".
Her latest series, The Dog Squad, which she has just signed with HarperCollins (out in August) features a Non-Binary character by way of “incidental representation”.
It’s not the theme of the story, it's just who they are and I think that’s nice,” she says.
““Trans and non-binary children need books in which they are seen and can see themselves respected and celebrated, living normal, healthy, happy lives.
“It’s not just those children who will benefit from those books, their peers will, as a result of reading those books, grow in empathy, and imagination and their horizons will stretch. So these books will be for everybody. They're not just for trans children”.
Luckily, Clara has another creative outlet for when things get tough, one which she seems to have inherited.
“If I'm feeling very stressed, or a bit anxious, I will just get my button box and my ribbon box out and I'll just, you know, sort it out. [It’s] very soothing. I sometimes make things with them, but I think I just want to own them. I just want to look at them. I’m the same with hats too, and hat boxes, although sometimes I actually wear them. The hats, not the boxes”.
“My mum was the same; she adored hats and she always said she’d be a milliner if she wasn’t an illustrator”.
The youngest of three, Clara grew up in Notting Hill with her two brothers - Ed, a renowned war correspondent and Tom, a geneticist. Her mum worked at the dinner table and saved her paints for Clara to use, and her dad, architect John Vulliamy, was a keen print maker, so creativity was “just in the air, all the time”.
“I began drawing and writing my own little stories and being a creative person by watching rather than by being taught,” she says. “I’m pretty sure it was something I picked up very early, pre-verbal even. And I was never sat down and shown how to do anything but it was so much part of our family life”.
“I suppose I picked up on the joy that it gave other people. And I think that's a really lovely way to encourage creativity and children just by being a creative person, doing creative activities yourself, and just clearly loving it. So I think you don't have to look over the shoulder of children to tell them what to do.”
Looking back, she says it should have been obvious what path she would end up taking, but a brief dalliance with a history degree at Bristol momentarily derailed her.
“I think I thought if you could string a sentence together, you probably should do an academic degree. Ridiculous. Ridiculous and why I didn't have the strength of character to realise sooner, I don’t know, it clearly wasn’t for me. I didn’t even unpack my suitcase”.
She returned after three days, pursuing Fine Art at The Ruskin School of Art instead, the same course and school her mum had attended.
“She didn't discourage or encourage me really - either way, I think she probably knew that this was going to happen. She was quite hands off really. I suspect she knew that I'd find my way to being an author and illustrator. She probably just knew; the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I guess it might have been clear to her. But like all good parents, she knew to let it run its course and I'd get there in the end, which I did”.
Clara’s newest ventres joins Dotty Detective and Marshmallow Pie The Cat Superstar, her other series’, in addition to several standalone titles and Dixie O’Day, a series she worked on with her mum.
“I think we were both probably trying to do the same things, really - you know, bring comfort, joy and reassurance to children so that they can be seen and see themselves and see the things that they take seriously - the little things that seem small from the outside but feel huge on the inside of a small child's life”.
"It's an extremely complex and sophisticated process to write a very simple story for a very young child, and I think Mum took that really seriously. I think there are misconceptions about what it takes to make a really good book for a small child".
Hughes’ was adored, but the extent to which the public mourned, and continues to mourn her death last year, came as a surprise to her family.
“I wasn't expecting such an outpouring of love,” says Clara, “[The family] thought, when she died, it might be mentioned in a few newspapers. In fact, the reaction was absolutely immense and global. And I didn't, we didn't expect that. She wouldn't have expected it, she would have been really surprised”.
Shirley was a national treasure, but she was also a global phenomenon and her family are continuing to expand her legacy. They recently donated a large collection of her books to Bibliothèques Sans Frontières, (Libraries without Borders) who work with refugees, and are continuing to sort through her vast archive.
“She had this incredible drive, and incredible tenacity and ambition, and she touched so many people. And I don't know, I certainly am not as driven. Probably very few people are as driven as she was. She had no writer's or illustrators block. It just flowed out of her.
“It just flowed out of her mind into her hand, it was just the most gloriously, innately instinctive kind of process. And I just stand back in awe when I look at, you know, what she's achieved”.
“I do miss her a lot at the moment. Yes she was Shirley Hughes, to everyone and in public, but she was also my mum”.
Commendable campaigner ,will look out for more of her work