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YA fiction reviews from autumn/winter, with commentary in the third person for some reason:

YA fiction: the best of 2020, in which YA-specific genres are cited and/or invented & Claire is both snarky & earnest (December)YA Fiction: satisfying reads for December, in which Claire recognizes that implausible rom-coms about girls falling in love against the backdrop of musical theatre may be a niche interest and yet (December)YA fiction: Growing up black in the US, in which it’s very clear Claire wrote her column the week of the American elections (November)YA fiction: Witches, goddesses and cheerleaders for Halloween, in which there is a (relevant) quote from the Netflix adaptation of The Baby-Sitters Club (October)YA fiction: Children of Lir’s Aífe tells her side of the story, in which Dublin architecture plays a bigger part than you might expect (September)The return of Edward Cullen, vampire and emotional abuser, in which Claire tries to be ‘I was into her before she was cool’ about Jacqueline Wilson (September)

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Contributions to ‘best of’ pieces:

The Lonely Crowd ‘books of the year’ Banshee ‘best of’ (short pieces)

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Other things:

Poems! (Notions!) ‘Dragon’ can be found in ROPES  issue 28; ‘Kintsugi’ in The Lonely Crowd , issue 12/5-year anniversary edition.Interview from a while back about Banshee journal & press, with a particular focus on poetry. I was on a panel about YA fiction as part of the International Literature Festival Dublin that is watch-back-able. (This was, despite the weirdness of virtual events, a really nice one to do.)Virtual things I was not ‘in’ but involved with via Banshee Press: the launch of our first poetry book, Gold Light Shining by Bebe Ashley (she is in conversation with poet Stephen Sexton) & a reading/Q&A event marking 5 years of the journal for the Dublin Book Festival.