In Liddy-Jean Marketing Queen and the Matchmaking Scheme, a young woman with an intellectual disability works quietly on minor office tasks, mostly going unnoticed. Her invisibility becomes her superpower. She sees how badly the big boss treats employees and subsequently takes notes for a business book on how to do better. She also decides that two coworkers, Rose and Jenny, should be together and hatches a plan.

Author Mari SanGiovanni says that this protagonist, Liddy-Jean Carpenter, was inspired by a former colleague at a large corporation similar to the one in the novel. “One day while I was contemplating leaving that company, I passed by the marketing department where a young lady was busy stuffing envelopes,” SanGiovanni says. “She looked up at me passing by, and I wondered, ‘What does this crazy place look like from her viewpoint? What is it like to be a young woman who has Down syndrome or another learning disability and be surrounded by people who think differently than she does? I imagined her rolling her eyes at me as a signal that she also understood the crazy corporate world.”

The Rhode Island–based author and filmmaker knows that people with intellectual and developmental differences are often underestimated. Her nephew Luca has a rare condition that limits his vocabulary—and he is one of the funniest people she knows. SanGiovanni also saw a gap in the market. While many children’s books portray kids with delays or disabilities living a full life, she didn’t see that level of representation in books targeted at adults.

Through the unique character of charming Liddy-Jean, SanGiovanni tells a story that taps into universal feelings. “I think everybody can relate to feeling challenged or dismissed in their workplace, whether it be that they are female, too young, too old, and so on,” she says. “Add a main character like Liddy-Jean doing the storytelling, and that difference is even more profound, and it was a blast to write. I mean, who thinks positive 100% of the time at work even when they are challenged by difficult people and situations? Liddy-Jean, that’s who!”

The queer romance storyline gives the narrative extra punch. It also continues a theme that runs through SanGiovanni’s three earlier novels (Greetings From Jamaica, Wish You Were Queer; Camptown Ladies; and 80% Done with Straight Girls), which form a queer romantic-comedy series. Likewise, her new film, The Sibling Rule, is about two women who fake a marriage to keep their two kids in the same school together; things get complicated when the marriage turns real. Recently picked up by the U.K.-based streaming service Lesflicks, the film has won multiple awards, including Best Woman Short and Best LGBTQ Short, at the Independent Short Awards.

“Queer representation for the community in novels and the entertainment industry was so tiny when I was young,” SanGiovanni says. “I had such a hunger to read and watch stories about family and love where gay characters naturally blended in, just like in my own family. Back then, we had a few groundbreaking novels by Rita Mae Brown and Katherine Forrest, and my sister and I had to sneak off across state lines from Rhode Island to Connecticut in order to see films like Desert Hearts, which features a love story between two women.”

Now in her 50s, SanGiovanni says that queer representation in books and film has certainly improved, but she thinks that both the publishing and the entertainment industries have a way to go when it comes to inclusivity and funding book-to-screen niche films. “Even though my first film won top awards at five festivals, it won’t be seen by a large audience unless it gets funded by a bigger production company and remade with some name actresses,” she says. “My hope is that the publishing industry becomes a larger gateway for more unique novels to also be made into films.”

As for her next creative projects, SanGiovanni has another film in postproduction and says she may not be done with Liddy-Jean. She’s become captivated by this fascinating character, and she’s contemplating creating a series. “I want to see what she’ll do next.”