Creative Resume & CV – Thom Seddon

I have been working full-time as a freelance creative since 2018, though my practical experience spans more than two decades. My career has given me the opportunity to produce work autonomously as well as collaborate on a variety of exciting commissions and passion projects, ranging from podcasting and filmmaking, to producing written anthologies and interactive cabaret shows. You can view my CV here.

WRITING
My body of creative work is predominantly LGBTQ focused, and weaves together a fresh contemporary style with magical realism; darkly comedic with a romantic twist. I deem myself a representative of the weird and the queer. I’ve been a creative type since my earliest memories, forever dreaming up stories and even winning the Unicorn Arts Theatre National Young Playwright Competition for ages 9-12 as a kid. As a teenager, I travelled to America two summers in a row to write, direct, and act in a production called Trajectories at a school in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Since then, I graduated with an MA in Creative Writing, an MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes, and have worked across the UK as an entertainer, facilitator, and artist.

DRAG
Ridiculous, rancid and beautiful, Nana Arthole appeared fully formed under a stack of mouldy Women’s Weekly’s in 2013. Starting out as a DJ and host in the Nottingham club-scene, Nana quickly took to the stage to give her theatre background a long overdue birthday, soon becoming known for a quick wit that blends both the dark and the adorable. A fully qualified, self-certified entertainer, if you name it, she’s convinced she can do it! Her wicked charm and flexible skill-set has given her the opportunity to work alongside some of the biggest names in the drag world, as well as appear on big telly more than once. The ladder in her tights is the Stennah Stairlift to purgatory – so why don’t you join this endlessly talented and delusional queen on her ride towards the lowest hanging star!

Current

Unnamed Drag Productions – Podcast & Events Co-host & Producer

Gladrags Events – Host, Entertainer & Producer

G4YB0Y band – Production & Vocals

Libra Season Media – Director

Rainbow Down – Solo music & performance project

Thom Bowla – Solo music project

Nottingham Writers’ Studio – Development & Operations Manager, 2019 – 2023

DirtyFilthySexy LGBTQ+ Clubnight – Co-host, Resident Performer & Event Producer, 2013 – 2021

Headway Rehabilitation Centre – Creative Writing Tutor, 2020 – 2021

Awards & Qualifications

1996 Winner of the Unicorn Arts Theatre National Young Playwright Competition (Empty Spaces)
Highly Commended in 1997 (Parodyse High)

BA English w/Creative Writing & MA Creative Writing – Nottingham Trent University

MSc Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes – Metanoia Institute/Middlesex Uni

Projects & Commissions

Write Minds – Volunteer Shadow Facilitator

Drag Me Up – Lead Artist, in collaboration with Big White Shed

Write Pride LGBTQ Writing Festival – Assistant Producer & Workshop Facilitator

If the Trees Could Talk – Lead Artist, with Derbyshire LGBT+ & People Express

Stories from The Back of the Cupboard – Lead Artist, Crowdfunded web series

Writing From Home – Workshop Facilitator, with Write Mindful

Reconnecting Your LGBTQ+ Community – Workshop Facilitator, with Writing East Midlands

Produce & Progress – Lead Artist & Workshop Facilitator, with Pedestrian & Leicester LGBT+ Centre

Being There – Workshop Facilitator, with People Express

Overseal Gala 60th Anniversary Commemorative Booklet – Lead Artist, with People Express

‘A Good Beating‘ Podcast – Co-host & Audio Production

Nana Knows Best! – Interactive, improvised solo comedy show

Nana Get Her Grinch Out! – Interactive, improvised solo comedy Xmas show

Nana’s Not Learnt Her Lines! – Interactive, improvised solo comedy show

‘I FORGIVE YOU’ – Writer & Director – Short LGBTQ Film by Libra Season Films

Our City, Our Stories – Lead Writer for Southglade Park Library, with Nottingham City of Literature

WEMTerns 2024/2025 – Lead Writer on Mentoring Programme, with Writing East Midlands

‘Fixing’ – Drag Consultant for stage play, written by Matt Miller

Hockley Hustle Festival – Stage Curator & Promoter Mentor

Publications

The Smart Mouthed Victim

Death is Awful for the Living

Choose Your Own Mediocre

No More Queer Heartache zine

Men Holding Hands

“The Athame” in Love, Identity, Desire Anthology, Global Wordsmiths

If the Trees Could Talk zine, People Express & Dizzy Ink

“Ashtray” in Reflections Digital Zine (Editor & Contributor, Nottingham Writers’ Studio)

To Resist A Nation Going Backwards in Shuddhashar magazine, Issue #25

You can’t spell ‘Transform’ without backwards ‘Art’ in Radical Roots magazine, Issue #3

“Campaign (Ode to the Activist)” in Notes on Alone Editor & Contributor, Writing East Midlands

“Northern Lights” in Winter Anthology, Big White Shed

Seeking Publication & Works in Progress

K is For; (Novel)
The Jigsaw Garden (Novel)
Still Holding Hands (Novella)
If God Were On Our Side (Novella)
Encore (Screenplay)
Meaningless (Sitcom written with James Faulkner – currently seeking development)
MXTRXSS (Solo show – currently in development)

Reviews & Testimonials

‘Passionate, forthright, tender, baffled, dangerous, hopeful, funny, [his writings] quest for answers but refuse to accept trite hand-me-downs. Their interweavings challenge notions of artifice and tired versions of the mundane. In a variety of forms and voices, they embrace the sublime and the rotten, the detritus of life and moments of exhilaration, witty humour and harsh loss. With agility, varied rhythms, swooping descents, rising uplifts, they conjure the speaking voice, the word reaching to be set free, protesting against captivity, while honouring the ordinary, the profane, the messy, the incomplete, and the absurd. The question of how to write and live fully in the face of loss, oppression, prejudice and mistrust is explored with humour and poignance.‘

Fiona Hamilton – Writer & MSc CWTP Tutor, Metanoia Institute

‘Thom is a very engaging and inspiring workshop leader. During his time working with Write Minds he connected well with the needs of the participants and brought a strong knowledge of writing forms to the project. He ignites a passion for change using literature and does this through innovative writing techniques and challenges.‘

Hayley Green – Founder, Write Minds & Producer, Write Pride LGBTQ+ Writing Festival

‘Thom Seddon was a student of the Nottingham Trent University MA in Creative Writing. As Module Leader of the Fiction module on that course it was my responsibility to supervise and grade his work and facilitate critical workshops in which he took part. The course is largely devoted to producing and studying creative writing but it also includes a substantial academic and critical element. Thom proved to be a very innovative writer. He has a fine mind, and an approach to creative writing that seeks to incorporate diverse traditions of storytelling and literature. The results of this exploration are refreshing in that he has always been able – and continues to be able – to produce something original.‘

Dr Graham Joyce – Reader in Creative Writing 1996-2014, Nottingham Trent University

‘Yesterday, I finished reading Thom Seddon’s “Choose Your Own Mediocre” (2020), a collection of monologues in verse and prose. I call them, rather loosely, monologues because they are conveyed on the page in a consistent, unifying voice, wryly self-deprecating, sometimes angry, sometimes horny, often seriously puzzled by the conditions of mortality. Towards the end, in a piece located on the Norfolk coast, Seddon says: “The beach is a weathered mess, but I guess I was never much into perfection. / I think I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.” There’s an endearing warmth and modesty about this acceptance of imperfection, of “weathered mess”, in himself as much as in what he observes, that characterises the dominant tone of the whole book (if dominant isn’t too pushy a term). The muddled mediocrity of ordinary life—over which Seddon both laughs and cries—is enough. It has a value, and validity, of its own.‘

Gregory Woods – former professor at NTU and poet published with Carcanet

‘It was a privilege to immerse myself in Thom Seddon’s ‘Men Holding Hands’ as an advance reader. Thom is a gifted writer whose uniquely poetic prose frequently rewards the reader with its rhythmic, Larkinesque flow. We are taken on a jaw-clenching journey across stepping stones of observation and emotions, of separation and growing distance, of familiarity degenerating into unfamiliarity. The confessional reminiscing and claustrophobic desperation of the main character, Stefan explores his judgmental self-examination and self-criticism. He learns a considerable amount of wisdom that is gained the hard way from the experience of retrospection of his former years and behaviour. A variety of temptations and addictions are related amongst the confusion of a disintegrating long-term relationship that, as time speeds by, seems irretrievably doomed. The hypnotic flow of the typographic layout complements the narrative and enhances the urgency to read, and so absorbing is the story that when I resentfully had to break to make lunch, I moved away from my laptop feeling disorientated with worry, so immersed in Stefan’s character and his life that it took several seconds of eyelid blinking to remind me who and where I was. I was not Stefan, I was me, in our kitchen. The strength of Thom’s writing had the power to disorientate me and make me so anxious for Stefan’s wellbeing that I temporarily became him. There is an aching sadness surrounding Stefan’s hardened contemplation of his possibly futile attempts to save his relationship, and the candid way in which Thom confronts the oft unspoken, uncomfortable minutiae of life such as early morning bathroom routine made me laugh and applaud him. This honesty will resonate, and no doubt embarrass some readers. I look forward to seeing this engaging novel in print and to see it rewarded with the accolades that it so rightly deserves.’