Emily Booth

Research assistant, University of Technology Sydney
Emily Booth is a casual academic and research assistant at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. Her PhD research explored how teenagers respond to adult influence on their reading practices in the contexts of leisure reading, school reading, and industry engagement. In 2019, she was awarded the UTS Social Impact Grant in-full for her project, ‘Investigating the publication of Australian picture books by and about people from diverse communities in 2018’, in partnership with Australian advocacy group Voices From the Intersection. In 2021, she received the Frances Henne Research Grant from the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) for her project exploring connections between teenagers fiction reading and online misinformation practices. She is the inaugural student member of the UTS Human Research Ethics Committee, and is also a member of the University Student Conduct Committee (USCC) and Student Misconduct Appeals Committee (SMAC). She has published widely on diversity in Australia’s young adult fiction publishing industry.

Outside of academia, she's worked in the publishing industry for a decade as a specialist in children's and young adult literature. She created and hosted the 'YABookmeet' event (2015-2020), hosting monthly interviews with 50+ local and international authors and academics and discussion groups with readers of all ages. In 2018, Emily became the first internationally-based contributor to global readers’ advisory service NoveList. She has presented at writers' festivals and conferences, and in 2019 she hosted the sold-out Sydney event for New York Times Best-Selling author Sarah J. Maas on her 'Kingdom of Ash' World Tour at City Recital Hall, at the request of Bloomsbury Australia. In 2021, she hosted the Australia and New Zealand event for Sarah J. Maas' 'A Court of Silver Flames' World Tour. In her role as a founding member of the Executive Board of the international YA Studies Association (YASA) (2020—), she has co-organised two international conferences in 2020 and 2022. The first featured 600+ attendees and presenters from 45 countries, 70+ individual pre-recorded papers, and 28 live events including roundtables, workshops, and social events.