Character-Building Workshop with Dr Leah Phillips & Dr Melanie Ramdarshan Bold

Build-A-Character: Sexy Edition 

with Adolescent Identities

You’ve heard of Build-A-Bear, right!? Why not try building a character – this time with a twist! The romance version of your favourite delightfully wacky creative writing workshop will give you the chance to explore what it takes to build diverse characters who fall madly in love, lust, or nothing at all with one other.

Leah Phillips

Dr Phillips is an early career researcher in the field of YA studies. She is the founder and current President of the YA Studies Association, an international organisation focusing on the research, teaching and practice of YA. Dr Phillips is also currently revising Female Heroes in Young Adult Fantasy Fiction: Reframing Myths of Adolescent Girlhood, which will be out with Bloomsbury in 2021. Alongside these projects, she teaches and guest-lectures at several institutions in the UK and US.

Melanie Ramdarshan Bold

Dr Ramdarshan Bold is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information Studies at University College London, where she teaches and researches on topics related to Publishing and Book Cultures. Her main research interest centres on contemporary authorship, publishing, and reading, with a focus on children’s and YA books. She is currently working on several projects that explore issues of ‘diversity’ and inclusivity in children’s and YA publishing. Her book Inclusive Young Adult Fiction: Authors of Colour in the United Kingdom was published with Palgrave in 2019.