Alice Oseman’s own story could easily come from the pages of her feel-good, coming-of-age novels that have taken the young adult fiction world by storm.
Her stories of marginalised teenagers coming to terms with their sexual identities have struck a chord with a worldwide audience.
The 27-year-old has also become a household name in wider circles on the back of the Netflix adaptation of her Heartstopper series.
But Alice’s writing journey has taken a few twists and turns, including self-publishing, webcomics, and at one point setting up an online fundraiser.
Her own writing story began through frustration while still in sixth form.
She said: “I was a teenager during the first young adult fiction boom, which is when I discovered John Green.
“While I loved reading books like that, I couldn’t find any that really represented my world, which was a British all-girl school.
“So I started writing Solitaire just for fun, to make myself happy.
“It was only towards the end that I realised how much I wanted to be an author, and how much I believed in that book.”
Solitaire’s authentic portrayal of depression, eating disorders, and LGBTQ+ relationships earned her a publishing deal.
While studying literature at Durham University, her second novel, Radio Silence, as well as two online novellas, were published to further critical acclaim.
But her desire to progress the relationship of Solitaire characters Charlie and Nick led to an incredible change in direction – webcomics and graphic novels.
Alice added: “I tried to plan it as a prose novel, but I couldn’t make it work, because the story in my head didn’t have a novel structure.
“There wasn’t a beginning, middle, and end. It was ongoing, so I realised it would perfectly suit the format of a webcomic.’
After producing around 30 pages of the story, she launched Heartstopper on free platforms like Tumblr and Tapas.
Within a year, Nick and Charlie’s story had attracted tens of thousands of readers.
Alice’s crowdfunding target of £9,000 to self-publish Heartstopper was reached within two hours, with the fundraiser eventually bringing in close to £60,000.
She said: “At this point, I wanted to see Nick and Charlie in print, but I didn’t think it could be a traditionally published book, and my agent agreed.”
The 2,000 freshly printed graphic novels not only brought Heartstopper into the material world, but they led to the rights being snapped up, awards arriving with each volume, and eventually Netflix commissioning adaptations which have become two series and a finale film on the streaming service.
Although Alice’s books have become beacons of hope for young LGBTQ+ around the world, and she’s become one of the world’s best-selling young adult novelists, the success isn’t without its pressures.
Alice said: “I’m so grateful that this is my job and what my life is.
“But it has created a lot of pressure.
“I’m at a point where I’m struggling to work on things because I know there are so many people reading what I write.’