Hello World is the story of a life online. Part travelogue, part memoir, Sue Thomas draws on her online travels as well as her physical journeys in the USA, Australia, Spain and England. While the book is non-fiction, it is a direct descendant of Correspondence, Thomas’ extraordinary novel that also deals with the synergies between digital and physical worlds. Like its fictional counterpart, Hello World will trigger feelings in readers of both recognition and irritation and will stimulate debate on the nature of the physical in a wired world for years to come.

Visit the Hello World web view for comments and discussion by author and readers www.travelsinvirtuality.typepad.com

Hello World

" . . . she is a writer of a high order; there is no kind of person that can leave Hello World unchanged". Jason Leary

"Engagingly and warmly written, Hello World combines first-person meditations with a wealth of information. Highly recommended for first-time users and those who want to try dipping their toes into the cyberwaters." N Katherine Hayles

"Sue Thomas achieves a remarkable fusion of intensely personal and public concerns in her thoughtful exploration of how, why, where and with what effect we live on and off-line. This is a stylish piece of work: confident enough with narrative to play and experiment with form; grounded so well in its own subject matter that it can seek links and synthesis elsewhere; written with enviable clarity." Rebecca O'Rourke, writer and critic

"Sue Thomas has become one of the most innovative thinkers, promoters and facilitators on the Web." Stelarc

" . . . an essential tour guide to the poetics of time, space and gender in the Information Age. A Baedeker to the cyber-realm. Carolyn Guertin

"Sue is a restless figure in a stationary world of words. Embracing digital media for its freedom and life beyond the physical page, her writings fuse the surfaces, textures, histories and interactions of our bodies and minds. She writes the stories of tomorrow, today." Robin Rimbaud / Scanner

"Hello World is a sensitive and evocative exploration of the rhythms and flows of the internet, exploring the soft online spaces which we inhabit each day. Speaking with ease and authority, earned through years of immersive investigation, Sue Thomas critiques virtuality in a manner which makes this book accessible to those who are new to the networked world, as well as a must-read for those already there." Melinda Rackham

SUE THOMAS
biographical note

Sue Thomas was born in England in 1951. Both her parents were Dutch but made their home in the UK and her interest in cultural outsiders - physical and virtual, android and androgynous - probably stems from those somewhat confused beginnings. Her books include the novel Correspondence, a mix of flesh and machine short-listed for several prizes including the Arthur C Clarke Award (London: The Women's Press, 1992; New York: Overlook, 1993); Water, a novel of fluids, imaginations and passions (New York: Overlook, 1994; UK: Five Leaves, 1995) and an edited anthology Wild Women: Contemporary Short Stories By Women Celebrating Women (New York: Overlook, 1994; London: Vintage, 1994).

In 1995 Sue Thomas founded the trAce Online Writing Centre at The Nottingham Trent University and was Artistic Director for ten years. She is now Professor of New Media in the School of Media and Cultural Production, Faculty of Humanities, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK.

Her web-based work includes a reconfiguration of Correspondence at Riding the Meridian; and Lines at Lux: notes for an electronic writing. With Teri Hoskin, she co-edited the Noon Quilt website and book, and her work appears in In Place of the Page an ongoing cross-platform discourse on space created by Brigid Mc Leer. An excerpt from Correspondence appears in Reload: Rethinking Women and Cyberculture (MIT Press, 2002). 'Spivak', an excerpt from Hello World, was published online at The Barcelona Review in 2003. A short piece 'Travelling with Joni' appears in Raw Nerve's 2003 collection The Feminist Seventies.

email: sue.thomas@dmu.ac.uk
web: Sue Thomas' web page

We welcome enquries and comments; please contact Raw Nerve by letter post or at post@rawnervebooks.co.uk
 
top of page