STAFF PROFILE: DR THOMAS SLINGSBY

Thomas Slingsby is a writer and editor who grew up in a family of highly successful visual artists. His childhood was filled with drawing, painting and reading, and instilled in him a deep understanding of artists’ creative processes. He loves to combine this passion for the visual with his love of words, bringing artists’ stories and ideas to life on the page.

Slingsby comes from a academic background, having studied for his B.A. the University of Durham, where he developed a particular interest in Anglo-American modernism and critical theory. He furthered this specialism studying for his M.A. in Twentieth Century Literature at Sussex University, where he then stayed on for his DPhil. His DPhil thesis is an overview of the life and work of the brilliant but neglected English novelist Mary Butts (1890-1937), entitled The Sacred and the Esoteric: Locating Mary Butts’ Modernism. Slingsby’s study of Butts’ life gives him expertise on the cultural and historical forces which drove the innovations of the modernist movement, and his thesis was passed without corrections.

After completing his DPhil in 2009 Slingsby worked as a freelance writer and literary editor, honing his expertise in the preparation of publications and the promotion of artistic work. He has worked on publications by prize-winning poets and artists, including Iain Sinclair, Oona Grimes, Iztok Osojnik and many others.

Slingsby complements his professional writing with creative work. He writes short fiction and has recently co-edited and translated Hallucinated Horse, an anthology of Latin American poetry published in April 2012. He loves to learn about new artistic practises and ideas and is passionate in his belief in the power of language to inspire and to stimulate.