Sue Thomas (author)

Sue Thomas (born 1951) is an English author and researcher. Writing since the late 1980s, she has used first fiction and then nonfiction to explore the impact of computers and the internet on everyday life. In 2013 she coined the term technobiophilia to describe the innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes as they appear in technology; her work now focuses on the connections between digital life, nature and well-being.
In 2005–7 she led the development of the concept of transliteracy, "the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks".
In 2013 she coined the term technobiophilia which she defined as 'the innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes as they appear in technology'. It is extrapolated from the notion of a biophilia hypothesis.
Her most recent book is Technobiophilia: nature and cyberspace. The non-fiction travelogue of cyberspace Hello World: travels in virtuality was published in 2004. Her first novel Correspondence was short-listed for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 1992 and the Arthur C Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 1993. She has published extensively in both print and online, and has initiated numerous online writing projects.
Until July 2013 she was Professor of New Media in the Institute of Creative Technologies, Faculty of Art, Design and Humanities at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. She founded the trAce Online Writing Centre at Nottingham Trent University in 1995 where she was Artistic Director until joining De Montfort University in 2005. She left De Montfort University in 2013.
She lives in Bournemouth, Dorset and is a Visiting Fellow in the Media School at Bournemouth University.