Sue Thomas: Introduction

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February 21, 2011 Sue Thomas

Hello everyone. I'm honoured to have been invited to be an occasional contributor to this stimulating and important blog. I hope you enjoy my contributions and find them relevant to your interests.

A bit about me. I'm a writer and Research Professor of New Media in the Institute of Creative Technologies at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. My first novel Correspondence was shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award in 1992, and my most recent book is the non-fiction cyberspace travelogue  Hello World: Travels in Virtuality (2004). I'm currently writing Nature and Cyberspace: Stories, Memes and Metaphors and my research for that book has involved several visits to the West Coast to interview key people from the early days of the net. I'll include some notes and excerpts in future posts.
Right now I'm turning my attention to the Far and Middle East, and Africa. The birth of the internet in the USA has meant that much of the original terminology and metaphors came from North American culture, and I'm keen to find out how they have evolved in other languages and cultures. If anyone can offer me examples, I'd be delighted!
Image: An image of an  early Apple computer that you are no doubt familiar with, but did you know that the casing was made from koa wood, usually used for ancient Hawaiian surfboards? The start of 'surfing' on the net?!