Thomas Legendre
Lecturer in Creative Writing, Faculty of Arts
Contact
Expertise Summary
BA (University of New Hampshire), MA (University of Delaware), MFA (Arizona State University)
Fiction and drama
Teaching Summary
In my teaching I am interested in helping students to produce fiction of all shapes and sizes. In particular I enjoy exploring the subtle but crucial use of narrative voice and distance in relation… read more
Research Summary
My fiction and drama tend to draw from work in other disciplines, exploring the subjective underpinnings of apparently objective material. My first novel, The Burning, features characters whose… read more
Selected Publications
In my teaching I am interested in helping students to produce fiction of all shapes and sizes. In particular I enjoy exploring the subtle but crucial use of narrative voice and distance in relation to point-of-view, the self-generated structures of narrative, and the unexpected renderings of character, dialogue, setting, and plot that lead to engaging stories and novels.
Taught modules include:
Beginning Creative Writing
Prose and Poetry Writing
Creative Writing in a Contemporary Context
Advanced Writing Practice
Forms of Fiction (postgraduate)
The Novel (postgraduate)
Introductory Fiction Workshop (postgraduate)
Advanced Fiction Workshop (postgraduate)
For more information visit thomaslegendre.com
Current Research
My fiction and drama tend to draw from work in other disciplines, exploring the subjective underpinnings of apparently objective material. My first novel, The Burning, features characters whose personal activities, which encompass sexual intrigues and visits to Las Vegas casinos, are inextricable from their discoveries in the fields of economics, ecology, and astrophysics. Half Life (www.halflife.org.uk), on the other hand, was an entirely different sort of project -- an avant-garde, site-specific play performed on the west coast of Scotland as part of NVA's environmental art installation in 2007 -- yet its dramatic technique was derived from the methods of archaeology as well as general relativity and cosmology. My second novel (forthcoming) involves a twin storyline, a French-Canadian/American narrative voice, and characters whose work in metallurgy and global financial markets play a role in the events leading up to 11 September 2001.
More recently I have become interested in audio as a medium for storytelling. This is reflected in a short work of fiction, 'Divine Wind,' issued by 4'33" Audio Magazine (www.fourthirtythree.com/archivesDEC10.html), and 'Dream Repair,' a radio drama commissioned by the BBC for broadcast in 2012.
I also have a paper in progress about creative approaches to landscape and phenomenology. In addition, I have embarked on a rather long novel incorporating a blend of geology, archaeology, music, and time travel.
In my teaching I am interested in helping students to produce fiction of all shapes and sizes. In particular I enjoy exploring the subtle but crucial use of narrative voice and distance in relation to point-of-view, the self-generated structures of narrative, and the unexpected renderings of character, dialogue, setting, and plot that lead to engaging stories and novels.
For more information visit thomaslegendre.com