Team
Rita Faire
Rita Faire is a PhD candidate and Associate Lecturer in Publishing at the Scottish Centre of the Book in Edinburgh Napier University.
Her current research examines the implications of conglomeration and co-editions on the periphery picturebook publishing environments of Europe – specifically Scotland, Ireland and Sweden.
Rita is also a writer, editor and graphic designer who has worked with several award-winning publishers including dyslexia-friendly children’s publisher Barrington Stoke.
Sarah Hardstaff
Sarah Layzell, Ph.D., is a writer and editor.
Their current and previous research has focused on economics in children’s literature, sports in inclusive children’s literature, and the works of Mildred D. Taylor.
Sarah is the author of children’s novel, Cottonopolis (Northodox Press, 2024).
Breanna J. McDaniel
Dr Breanna J. McDaniel (she/her/hers) is the co-founder of REIYL (Researchers Exploring Inclusive Youth Literature) and an author.
She’s published in myriad academic journals and an academic anthology. Her debut picture book Hands Up! was published with Dial Books in 2019, while Impossible Moon was published with Denene Millner Books in June of 2022.
Her most recent picturebook, GO FORTH AND TELL: The Life of August Baker, Librarian and Master Storyteller, (Dial) came out in February of 2024. She has four forthcoming picture books, including Cute Toot with Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, which will be published in the Spring of 2024.
Breanna’s academic research is focused on surveillance and respectability politics in representations of Black children as food in contemporary picture books. A proud alumna of Emory University and Simmons University, she recently completed a PhD in Education.
Emma Reay
Dr Emma Reay is a Senior Lecturer in Emerging Media at the University of Southampton.
Her research spans social constructions of childhood, games and mental wellbeing, new heroism in interactive texts, gamification and capitalism, death in games, and the metaphysics of toys.
She is the author of The Child in Videogames (Palgrave MacMillan, 2024) and has published articles in Games Studies, Games and Culture, Journal of Games Criticism, International Research in Children’s Literature, Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, International Journal of Young Adult Fiction, Barnboken, and Digital Games Research Association.
She has contributed book chapters to Reinventing Fashion (Palgrave MacMillan), Playful Materialities (Transcript), and Silence and the Child (Makadam).
Parinita Shetty
Parinita Shetty is a writer and enthusiast of children’s books.
She has worked with books and young people in India in different ways – as an author, a bookseller, a reading programme developer, and a children’s literature festival coordinator.
She has an M.Ed in Children’s Literature and Literacies from the University of Glasgow, and is currently a doctoral researcher at the University of Leeds, studying intersectionality and critical literacy in fandom, specifically in Harry Potter and Doctor Who fan podcasts.
She should be writing, but she’s probably looking for cake.
Joshua Simpson
Dr Josh Simpson is the co-founder of REIYL.
After a decade of practicing law, he left the US to pursue a PhD in Scotland, his adopted home.
His research focuses on Section 28 and LGBT+ youth literature.
He has taught at the university-level, is an Associate Fellow of Advance HE (the Higher Education Academy), and Executive Editor of International Research in Children’s Literature.
He studied Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh and spends his spare time writing fiction for young people.