Marry Me Tomorrow came into being after seeing a tweet from my publisher, HQ Digital, asking for stories that began with a proposal. I’d been writing a short story about a homeless boy at the time, and the idea for Emily asking homeless Sam to pose as her husband while her mother visits stemmed from there. There had been lots of coverage in the media about the dramatic increase in the number of people finding themselves without homes and I found it so sad. I’d also seen an article about Maxwell Rushton, an artist who’d tripped over a bag of rubbish and apologised to it, thinking it was a homeless person. He’d felt chilled by the realisation that he’d mistaken rubbish for a human being, and it had inspired him to make hunched, human-shaped sculptures covered in bin bags and place them on the streets to make people consider how they see homeless people. I found it really powerful and moving, especially watching people’s reactions to the sculptures. You can watch a video about it here.
So, with Marry Me Tomorrow, I wanted Sam to be representative of the fact that there is a story behind every homeless person. There are many reasons why people become homeless and just because someone has no money and no shelter doesn’t mean they are less human. I can’t imagine how awful it must be to sleep rough. It shouldn’t be happening in this day and age, let alone be on the increase.
