I love a lot of things about D&D! But if I had to choose, I would say that what I love most is the feeling of collaboratively telling a story (connection to verbal storytelling, feels like continuing that tradition of sitting around a campfire telling stories). In tabletop games the GM/DM (Game/Dungeon master) comes up with a lot of the setting and plot hooks but the player’s choices, and actions they take as their characters, also shape the story.
My favourite campaign is the one I’m playing currently, our GM has created a world for us to play in where people live on floating islands in the sky.
The character I play in that game actually makes a small cameo in Homebody! His name is Eugene and he’s a bookish and slightly awkward half-elf wizard. A lot of people expected him to grow up to be a strong and charismatic swordsman, just like his father, who is a very famous adventurer, but Eugene is trying to prove that there is more than one way to be a hero.

I would recommend starting by watching people play a game to familiarise yourself with how things work.

There are lots of groups who film their D&D games and put them online for people to watch. If you have a tabletop gaming shop of any kind nearby, you could always check in and see if they have any D&D events you could go along to.

You may find someone there who would be happy to help you learn more, I find most people who love D&D want to share that with as many people as they can!

The best part about writing a book is getting the chance to share my experiences with people. I’ve also found the process of writing this book has been very cathartic for me, being able to get all of these thoughts and feelings onto a page has helped me to express a lot of things I haven’t been able to previously.

The difficult part is that sometimes it can feel a bit lonely, especially when you can’t really talk about what you spend all your time doing! So I’m very glad that now I get to share it all with the world and see how people connect to what I’ve written.

I wrote Homebody for anyone who has struggled or been confused about their gender identity. I wrote it particularly for young people because I wanted them to see that, although it can be difficult to be LGBTQ+, it’s also joyful and beautiful.

I want young queer, trans and gender non-conforming people to know they deserve happiness, love and support. My hope is that this book helps trans and non-binary people feel less alone and allows cisgender allies to better understand the experiences of trans+ people.

I chose a graphic novel because I am a very visual person, being able to use a combination of images and words felt like the most authentic way to portray my story and the emotion that comes with it.

Graphic novels are a lot of work! But I feel like, because of this, you can really feel the passion and care that is poured into them when reading.

Homebody started life as a poem I wrote to express some of the feelings I was having about my relationship with my body.

While reading it I could picture images that would go with the words so I made a simple 5 panel comic. Definitely at that point I would never have imagined that a year and a half later it would have become a full graphic novel.

I think this book will be relevant to student readers because Homebody speaks to the universal experience of growing into yourself. Young adulthood is a time when we take the first big steps to discovering, loving and embracing what makes us, us.

Whether transgender or not we are all trying to discover who we are and how we want to present that to the world, we all want to be at home in our houses, to come to a place of ease within ourselves.

In a lot of ways I wrote this book for my teenage self, I know I would have loved to read something like this and I think it would have helped me to feel less alone in what I was experiencing.

When I was at school there were really no books that I could see myself represented in and I think it’s so wonderful that we are seeing so much more diversity in books for young people these days.

I don’t think I could pick out any part in particular that I feel proudest of about this story, I am incredibly proud of the whole thing! I feel fortunate to have been able to share my experiences with young people who deserve to see themselves represented in publishing.

Theo’s graphic novel for teens is available now, you can find it in our Graphic Novel Summer Promo and read more about it by clicking the image below.

We’d like to thank Theo for answering our questions, even the ones only vaguely adjacent to Homebody (any chance to talk D&D!)