About Me

Elizabeth Leach-Leung (née Leung)

Alt text: Elizabeth wearing a purple shirt with greenery in the background.
Image description: Elizabeth wearing a purple shirt with greenery in the background.

Dr. Elizabeth Leach-Leung (she/her) is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Simon Fraser University. Funded by the SSHRC Canada Postdoctoral Research Award program, her research focuses on the representation of dyslexic children and young adults across various media formats including comics, film and television, video games, and print literature. This project builds off her doctoral thesis, Representations of Dyslexia Across Genres in Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Conducted at the University of Cambridge, her doctoral research received the Faculty of Education Doctoral Student Excellence Prize and the St. Edmund’s College Toby Jackman Prize for Ph.D. research.

Beyond dyslexia and children’s literature, Elizabeth has a wide range of research interests including disability studies, genre studies, media studies, Disney studies, new adult literature, posthumanism, and creative writing for children and young adults. Her work on a variety of subjects has been published in Children’s Literature in Education, British Journal of Special Education, Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, and Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature. She is the co-founder and editor-at-large of Young Adulting: Serious Reviews of Books for Kids and Teens, an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Young Adult Literature (IJYAL) and chaired the international academic conference Crip Kid Lit: Critical Approaches to Disability in Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Media (April 2024). As a Canadian and frequent traveller, she will always correct people who mistakenly call toques ‘beanies’ or ‘woollen/knitted hats.’

Young Adulting

A cartoon book with a red cover which reads "YA".
Image description: A cartoon book with a red cover which reads “YA”.

An online magazine based out of the UBC School of Creative Writing that publishes entertaining and insightful analyses of books for young readers. 

IJYAL

The acronym IJYAL in blue with the letters YA in a darker navy.
Image description: The acronym IJYAL in blue with the letters YA in a darker navy.

The International Journal of Young Adult Literature is an academic peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing original and serious scholarship on young adult literature from all parts of the world.

Crip Kid Lit

An open book above which is a lightbulb and brain. The text underneath reads "Crip Kid Lit Symposium".
Image description: An open book above which is a lightbulb and brain. The text underneath reads “Crip Kid Lit Symposium”.

An international, fully hybrid conference held at the University of Cambridge and Online in April 2024 which mobilized knowledge at the intersections of children’s literature and disability studies.