Children's Author Jacqueline Wilson Comes Out at 74

After 111 books, British children's author Jacqueline Wilson has finally written her first novel about LGBTQ+ teens with Love Frankie. With the press tour for the project ongoing, the timing seemed right for Wilson to come out publicly though she says her romantic life has hardly been a secret to anyone who knows her; Wilson has been with her partner, Trish, for 18 years.

"I've never really been in any kind of closet," Wilson recently told The Guardian. "It would be such old news for anybody that has ever known anything much about me. Even the vaguest acquaintance knows perfectly well that we are a couple."

Wilson's friends and family have embraced Trish, save for her late mother, but "that wasn't too devastating for me because my mum cordially hated my ex-husband; she didn't really approve of any of my friends."

The prolific, award-winning writer, behind such classic British books series like Tracy Beaker and Hetty Feather, is set to release her new novel in August. Love Frankie is her first to focus on queer youth and centers on a tomboy, Frankie, falling in love with the prettiest girl in class, Sally.

Wilson's goal was to write "a truthful, honest book about a girl falling in love with another girl. It's certainly not aimed at young gay teenagers, it's aimed at all teenagers who have ever worried because they haven't fallen in love, or they have fallen in love."

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