Welcome to Introducing YASA! This series of blog posts is all about getting to know the YASA executive board members. In this entry, we chat to our President Dr. Leah Phillips and delight over her cat Finnian.
So Leah, how would you describe research area in three keywords?
Mythopoeic YA, adolescent girlhood, YA studies
through edit of her thesis
What do you think is the most under-rated YA novel that you’ve loved?
Tamora Pierce’s Tortall books (yes, I’m cheating)
Where’s the best location to read?
Depends on the season. As we’re heading into autumn, my favourite armchair, with a cozy blanket, cat, and a fire in the wood-burning stove.
What’s your favourite beverage/snack to have while reading?
Tea or wine!
What’s your favourite YA tv/movie adaptation?
It will be the Netflix Shadow and Bone. I’d also argue that the Catching Fire film is better than the book…
What’s a YA on your TBR that you’re excited to read?
I’m really excited to read Zoraida Córdova’s Incendiary (yes, I’m late to the party). And, I’m desperate to get my hands on Roshani Chokshi’s The Silvered Serpents. It’s the follow up to Gilded Wolves, which was an UTTER delight.
What would your teen-self think of your current research, in a few words?
I’m not entirely sure she’d entirely be able to wrap her head around the academic work (I’m a first-gen university student). Having said that, I was very much a “Kristy Thomas” as a kid/young teen, so she’d probably geek out over YASA…
What’s one YA that you’d love every teenager to read?
Savita Kalhan’s The Girl in the Broken Mirror (there are trigger warnings, but the story is beautifully written and incredibly moving).
If you weren’t a YA scholar, what other kind of YA practitioner would you be? (librarian, bookseller, author, publisher etc…)
Development editor.
What is your favourite YA trope?
I’m loving the emerging ‘crew hero’ fantasy trope, because we really can’t do it alone, can we?
Thanks for chatting, Leah!
Contact Leah on yasapresident@gmail.com or via Twitter @Le_phill.
Dr Leah Phillips has research connections with University College London and the University of Warwick. She has an international reputation as a leading figure in the field of YA literature studies where her work focuses on representations of adolescent girls in speculative fiction. She is currently revising her first monograph: Female Heroes in Young Adult Fantasy Fiction: Reframing Myths of Adolescent Girlhood, which is due out with Bloomsbury in 2021. Leah is also on the Children’s Literature Association’s Phoenix Committee and a member of The International Journal of Young Adult Literature’s Editorial Board.
