Katherine Locke began writing as a young child and finished their first novel in high school. Always a story lover, they enjoy exploring new worlds and characters through their work—and once said that fiction helps them learn how to deal with the real world.
Locke’s work is largely focused on queer young adult fiction, often with magical or fabulist elements, but it’s a 2021 picture book for younger children, What Are Your Words? A Book About Pronouns, that landed on the list of books cited in a case the U.S. Supreme Court will hear on April 22. In the story, a child named Ari who isn’t sure which pronouns to use, learns that it’s okay not to know your words right away. The Supreme Court case centers on whether a Maryland school district must provide parents who object to LGBTQ+ books on religious grounds with an option to take their children out of lessons involving them.
Locke, who says they would have been a happier child and teenager if this sort of book was available when they were growing up, shared their thoughts with PEN America about the wave of book censorship in the country and what their book has meant to readers.
What was the impetus for writing What Are Your Words? A Book About Pronouns?
I wanted to write a book that introduced readers (both children and their caregivers) to pronouns, while also emphasizing that pronouns are just one way that we identify ourselves, and we use many words to describe ourselves for the world. Everyone has pronouns, everyone uses pronouns, and they’re not the only facet of our identity, but they are important to get right.
What have readers—young and old—told you about what your book meant to them?
I’ve had readers email me that my book helped their young child articulate the feeling they experience when they’re misgendered, long before the child understood the word “misgendered” or even the concept of pronouns. And I’ve had adult readers tell me that in the process of reading to their child, they too found their words, meaning their pronouns.
Did you have books like this when you were young or your children were young? What would it have meant to have books like this?
I think I would have been a much happier child and teenager had I understood the concept of nonbinary gender identity and nonbinary pronouns. I spent many years trying to fit into a box that was not mine, a process that was often painful and self-limiting. I wish I’d had books like this as a kid to help me engage more fully with myself and be a happier kid.
What does it say to you when someone says LGBTQ+ content violates their religious beliefs?
I fear for their child, should they be a member of the LGBTQ+ community, because I know what the statistics say regarding mental health and suicide with kids who do not grow up in affirming communities or affirming homes. And I feel saddened for the person who believes that their religious beliefs deny the existence of members of their community. Denying someone’s existence and their humanity to me violates the basic tenets of every religion I can think of. Religion isn’t a weapon to be used against other people.
Many of the books cited in the case have been badly misrepresented in the media. What would you like people to understand that they might have missed?
These books are all joyful. They’re books about making connections and finding ourselves in the world. They’re books about happiness and joy and sharing that happiness and joy with other people. They’re not preaching or coercing in any way.
