Talk to any third year arts undergraduate about their career plans or the prospect of leaving university and you may well be greeted with scoffs, anxiety or even tears.
Claire Louisa Thomas | BiOlogy
The University of Sheffield however, is a hotbed of literary and critical talent, with talents such as Jack Rosenthal (Coronation Street scriptwriter) and Comedienne Linda Smith having graduated with arts degrees. The latest alumni looking to join the list of ‘extremely high calibre’ individuals is Claire Louisa Thomas, who this year finalized her LGBT themed book, BiOlogy.
Now living in Nottingham, Thomas tells of how her time in Sheffield lies behind many of her short stories.
“I moved to Sheffield in 2000 and ever since, Sheffield and its landmarks and suburbs have turned up in my writing.
“The protagonist in ‘Just Decide’, (from BiOlogy) drinks in Dempsey’s and lives just off St. Mary’s Gate.
“My first novel, Bar Sinister, which I’m currently finishing, is set within Sheffield too.
“In fact, the flat where my main character lives is based on one where I lived in Walkley for a couple of years.
“It’s not surprising really, because Sheffield is where I got my start as a writer.”
Having written for Forge Press (then Steel Press), Thomas found writing to have become more of an ‘irritating habit’ than a choice, drawn to creating stories in her youth rather than picking up those of others.
Leaving the shelter of university life in 2003, writing remained a long-term ambition despite the need to establish herself on a career path.
“I continued writing off and on through a series of jobs, selling articles to magazines and writing fiction largely to amuse myself, although I always hoped I’d sell some someday.
“Although it is often hard to fit it in between my (now permanent) job and the postgraduate diploma I agreed to undertake when I got the job.
“This is how BiOlogy came about – writing short stories to fit into a very limited timespace.”
BiOlogy, as its title suggests, is a series of short stories exploring the experiences of a social group that’s foundations are somewhat blurred.
Reading the stories it is evident that Thomas wishes to distinguish bisexuality as a ‘valid concept’, an area that she herself struggled with.
“I had recently come out to my family as bi, having come out to my friends some years before.
“I had little understanding of what bisexuality was. There were very few visible, high profile bisexuals.
“Most of what I heard from people around me was that bisexuality didn’t exist in any real sense, that it was just attention seeking or immature behaviour, ‘a phase’.
“So I presumed that there was something wrong with me for ten years, during which I was very unhappy and most of the time, very frightened.
“The phase wasn’t ending. What did that make me?”
Given her desire to write, BiOlogy was a natural progression for Thomas; with writing designed to fit around work, short stories based on her own experiences of bisexuality and other fictitious ideas seemed the ideal way to satiate her appetite.
Those experiences burn through the pages with the struggle to psychologically and biologically place bisexuality ever-present – ‘THERE’S NO SUCH THING! You’re one or the other, gay or straight, you can’t pick and choose as it suits you’.
“A gay friend told me one day about his straight – and very homophobic – twin.
“The conflict in that situation interested me, so I started from there and wrote “Just Decide”. And that’s where I started to see a theme.
“That’s when I decided that there wasn’t enough stuff written about bisexuality, its facets and aspects, and people’s different attitudes to it. It became a conscious decision to write a collection of short pieces that would unpick bisexuality in all its complex and painful reality.“
As a first project BiOlogy has provided the first-step in the right direction for Thomas’ literary career. The book has generally received positive responses from her peers but the desire to create something lasting persists.
“Compliments are all very well, but I’d like something better than just compliments. I’d like people of all orientations to enjoy a good story, where the characters happen to be bisexual.
“I’d like the reader never to doubt that the people in these stories, and their feelings and actions, are as real as real can be.
And if those readers aren’t bi, I’d hope, too, that they’d look at the real world, and see that real bi people are there, too.”
With a first notch in her authorial belt it’s difficult not to wonder whether others sitting in the university libraries Thomas once sat in might come across a shelf of her books in years to come.
“Looking back, my happiest memories of university are of the beautiful green view out of the university library, sitting in the stacks with a hangover and a contraband bag of Malteasers.”
There’s always space for one more on our distinguished alumni list.
BiOlogy is available in paper back for £4.50 and in the Kindle store for £1.72
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[...] been followed by Claire being interviewed by LEFT LION (click the link to read the interview) and FORGE TODAY (click the link!). Forge have also published a brilliant review of the book, which you can read [...]