Derritt Mason is a Ph.D. candidate and Killam Memorial Scholar in the Department of English and Film studies at the University of Alberta.  His dissertation draws on queer theory to examine the evolution of North American queer young adult fiction and its attending body of criticism since the publication of the first gay young adult novel in 1969.  Derritt has published articles on anti-gay violence in Wyoming with The Brock Review, narratives of childhood and perversity with Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, hysterical imagery in Lady Gaga’s music videos with Gaga Stigmata, and he has a forthcoming piece on the relationship between the It Gets Better Youtube project and children’s literature with ESC: English Studies in Canada.  He is currently co-editing, with Ela Przybylo, a forthcoming special issue of ESC entitled “Hysteria Manifest: Cultural Lives of a Great Disorder.”