avg_rating: 3.98
name: Sue Thomas
about: I'm writing a novel again after a 20 year break, during which I wrote a lot of nonfiction. I stopped connecting with fiction in the late 1990s when I became deeply immersed in internet life. The online world felt much more real to me than made-up stories, and I turned to writing non-fiction and experimental digital work. My new novel is about what happens when the mysteries of technology and nature intersect. It's called 'The Fault in Reality' and it's set in 2016, the year everything started to go horribly wrong for the UK and the US. Restarting in fiction when you haven't had an agent for 20 years is hard to do but I hope to find a friendly publisher.My first novel was 'Correspondence' (short-listed for the Arthur C Clarke Award for Best I'm writing a novel again after a 20 year break, during which I wrote a lot of nonfiction. I stopped connecting with fiction in the late 1990s when I became deeply immersed in internet life. The online world felt much more real to me than made-up stories, and I turned to writing non-fiction and experimental digital work. My new novel is about what happens when the mysteries of technology and nature intersect. It's called 'The Fault in Reality' and it's set in 2016, the year everything started to go horribly wrong for the UK and the US. Restarting in fiction when you haven't had an agent for 20 years is hard to do but I hope to find a friendly publisher.My first novel was 'Correspondence' (short-listed for the Arthur C Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction Novel 1992, The James Tiptree Award, and the European Science Fiction Award). In 1994 I published my second novel, 'Water', and edited the anthology 'Wild Women: Contemporary Short Stories By Women Celebrating Women' (1994). After that I turned to nonfiction: 'Creative Writing: A Handbook For Workshop Leaders' (1995); the cyberspace memoir/travelogue 'Hello World: travels in virtuality' (2004), and 'Technobiophilia: nature and cyberspace' (2013), a study of nature metaphors in internet culture and language. My most recent book is 'Nature and Wellbeing in the Digital Age' (2017), which explains the psychology behind our love for nature and offers practical advice on how to feel better without logging off.I've contributed to a wide range of anthologies and journals and written for The Guardian, Orion Magazine, Slate, and many others.I was born in Leicestershire, England, in 1951. My parents were both Dutch but had settled in England. I founded the trAce Online Writing Centre at Nottingham Trent University in 1995, and became Professor of New Media at De Montfort University in 2005. Since 2013 I've been a Visiting Fellow at Bournemouth University.Photo: In the background you can see Shelley Manor, Boscombe, Bournemouth, where Mary Shelley's son Percy lived with his wife Jane. It's 10 mins walk from my home and a constant inspiration. ...more