Heartstopper’s Alice Oseman illustrates bespoke Attitude cover as we name them Person of the Year
“It’s lovely to hear my work means a lot to readers — it’s what authors dream of," says Heartstopper's Alice Oseman, Attitude's Person of the Year
Heartstopper creator Alice Oseman has been named Attitude magazine’s Person of the Year.
The annual Attitude 101, empowered by Bentley, is a list that celebrates LGBTQIA+ trailblazers across multiple industries – from Business, Legal and Finance or Media, Broadcast and Sport to Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and beyond.
The list appears in issue 351 of Attitude and is headed by our Person of the Year – a leading light whose outstanding work and cultural impact has helped move LGBTQIA+ representation forward.
This year, Attitude spotlights Alice, the genius behind the best-selling Heartstopper graphic novel series that follows a group of teenagers discovering identity and love while at high school. Celebrated for its refreshingly authentic perspective, Oseman was the UK’s sixth best-selling author in 2022 while the original web comic boasts over 52 million views.
“It’s lovely to hear that my work means a lot to readers — it’s what authors dream of” – Alice Oseman
Not content with focusing their work solely on publishing the Heartstopper novels, Oseman led on writing the television adaptation, which became one of Netflix’s top 10 English language series ever when it aired in April 2022, receiving nine nominations and five wins at the inaugural Children’s and Family Emmy Awards. In their interview for the March/April issue, which features a cover illustration created exclusively for Attitude, Oseman speaks about the power of authentic LGBTQIA+ representation, their desire to see more asexual and aromantic stories in mainstream media, and what comes next for the hit series.
In their Attitude interview, they spoke with writer Juno Dawson about being a role model. Oseman said: “It’s lovely to hear that my work means a lot to readers — it’s what authors dream of. But it’s also jarring to see young people who are so confident in their identity.
“They’ve had people, or books, to see themselves in. I didn’t have that at all. When I was their age, I was in the repression zone and had no idea about anything. It’s bittersweet. I’m jealous of them. I wish I’d had their confidence.”
On online negativity, they furthermore added: “I have learned to shut out a lot of criticism. Heartstopper is about two characters I care about so deeply. I didn’t write it with an agenda. I wanted to tell a story, and it blew up.”
They also said: “You’re never going to please everyone, and if people are mad about it, you don’t have to read Heartstopper!”
To read our exclusive interview with Alice, pre-order issue 351 of Attitude here.