Photo: Amber Dumbleton-Thomas
WRITING
I write about life, nature and technology. I’ve just completed ‘The Fault in Reality’, my third novel, after twenty years of writing journalism, academic works, and several nonfiction books. The story is set in 2016 between the week of the EU Referendum and the week Trump was elected. It takes place in two seaside towns: Bournemouth, Dorset, where I live, and Santa Monica, California, where I often wish I lived. It’s about webcams, the umwelt, bookshops, odd happenings, forests, beaches, Silicon Valley, the climate crisis and, inevitably, the future.
My nonfiction books to date include Nature and Wellbeing in the Digital Age (2017), a beginner’s guide to technobiophilia with practical activities; Technobiophilia: nature and cyberspace (2013), a study of nature metaphors in cyberculture; and Hello World: travels in virtuality (2004), a travelogue/memoir of life online. Also, ‘Creative Writing: A Handbook For Workshop Leaders’ (1995) and most recently I contributed to ’25: Celebrating 25 Years of Nottingham Trent University’s MA in Creative Writing‘, which I founded in 1994.
My fiction includes the novels Correspondence (1992), short-listed for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and republished in 2019 by the SF Gateway, and ‘Water‘ (1994); plus an edited anthology ‘Wild Women: Contemporary Short Stories By Women Celebrating Women’ (1994), and various short stories.
I have been a regular contributor to Orion Magazine, and written for Aeon, Slate, Mashable, The Guardian, The Conversation and others. I’ve also published extensively in both print and online, and initiated numerous online writing projects including The Noon Quilt (1999), now an iconic image of the early days of the web.
RESEARCH
In 2013 I took voluntary severance from my job as Professor of New Media at De Montfort University, Leicester and went to live by the sea in Dorset to write what I wanted in my own time.
I’ve been researching and thinking about computers and the internet since the late 1980s. I fell into cyberspace in 1995 when I discovered the virtual world of LambdaMOO and was inspired to found the trAce Online Writing Centre, an early global online community which ran for ten years. Since then I’ve spent much of every day online. I’ve written about digital life, lived it, and helped many others to join the wired world. Today I’m still in love with being wired, but I have questions. Where are we headed? What should we be doing to ensure that our digital lives are healthy, mindful and productive?
From 2005-2013 I was Professor of New Media in the Institute of Creative Technologies at De Montfort University, England, where I founded the field of transliteracy research, a unifying concept of literacy for before, during and after the digital age, and ran innovative projects like Amplified Leicester and the Transdisciplinary Common Room.
I’ve taught and presented in many countries, both offline and online, including the USA, Singapore, Canada, Australia, China, France and others. I’ve received funding from Arts Council England, the Arts and Humanities Research Board, the British Academy, the British Council, the EU, the Higher Education Innovation Fund, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, NESTA and more. My partners have included commercial companies, universities, arts organisations, local authorities and colleagues in Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Sweden, and the USA. Some of my early websites have been archived in The British Library Special Collection, E-publishing Trends, including Sue Thomas (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013), Writing and the Digital Life (2007), and of course trAce (2005, 2008). You can also find many ancient pages of trAce (1998 onwards) at The Wayback Machine.
Early Life
I was born in 1951 in Rearsby, a small village in Leicestershire, England, where my maternal grandparents owned a rose-growing business. My parents were both of Dutch nationality and during my growing up our family moved around England, from Syston to Newcastle, then Corby, Epsom, and finally Nottingham while my father worked at a number of jobs including photocopier salesman and life underwriter. After leaving school I, too, pursued a varied career, including fine art student, accounts clerk, life model, bookseller, and self-taught machine-knitter. I went back to college in 1985 as a mature student and single parent, after which my life changed and I became a professional author and academic. I have two fantastic daughters, two wonderful sons-in-law, and four amazing grandsons who are growing up too fast.
Web: http://www.suethomas.net
Twitter: @suethomas
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Sue Thomas 