Tom Abba is Director of the DCRC, Associate Professor of Art & Design at UWE, and is currently co-investigator on the AHRC funded Immersive Arts programme, led by Verity McIntosh.

He has developed ongoing collaborations with key figures in the publishing sector, challenging accepted orthodoxies surrounding the impact of digital technologies on writing and publishing. He was named one of the Bookseller’s 40 Most Disruptive Innovators in Publishing, and remains the only academic on that list.

Tom steered the Ambient Literature project from 2016-2018, pioneering new forms of narrative engagement for the publishing industry, producing work that asked how writing, reading and the idea of the book itself might change when technology is used to design stories, rather than just present them. 

The Ambient Literature Lab now constitutes an ongoing and sustained body of practice-led research, pioneering new cross-modal forms for writing immersive literary experiences, responding to both commercial and creative imperatives.