THOMAS WADSWORTH

WORK IN PROGRESS

Since 2018, I’ve been writing a novel called SOUL CENTRE, based on my short story “Third Closest to the Sun”. It’s finished and I’m currently looking for representation.

Doran Isles is an eighteen-year-old orphan with a broken mind. There are voices in his head, who whisper incoherently. But he doesn’t mind anymore. Why? Because his next four days include attending the grand opening of Soul Centre Leeds, becoming a member to learn the truth about existence and what happens after we die, and killing himself.

Panda is a depressed twenty-one-year-old gaming addict who lives in a tent outside an internet café. The online gaming world is an escape, where he can be whatever he wants to be and forget who he is and what he did. Fate brings Doran and Panda together and a friendship blooms.

Soul Centre is a controversial pseudo-religious organisation run by the charismatic Peter Randall. It holds the key to the afterlife, but it’s making the wrong headlines as its members are committing suicide and going missing. Doran and Panda visit and get entwined in a mess that has global implications.

SOUL CENTRE is a multi-POV, contemporary, grounded science-fiction story, in the spirit of, and aimed at, readers of Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter. It tackles themes of mental illness, suicide, gaming addiction, and the afterlife.

PUBLISHED WORKS

I’ve had a number of short stories published by various presses. Please visit Literally Stories and read “Third Closest to the Sun” for free. You can also read “The Second Door” for free via this link. Further down, there are links to purchase an anthology containing my work to support those publications.

WITHERSHINS appears in the Momaya Short Story Review 2017 – Utopia Distopia, published by Momaya Press. This is my dystopian short story about a woman’s stance against a radical law to slow population growth. It is available to purchase through Amazon.

THE SECOND DOOR, winner of the inugural Marion Libraries short story competition, Life in Shorts, is published in Class, the H.G. Wells Short Story Competition’s 2015 anthology. Three hundred years after humanity discovers what happens after death, two young boys plan their early exit through the Second Door. Available to purchase through Amazon and Trencavel.

ENDEAVOUR is published in Aesthetica’s Creative Writing Annual 2016. On board the Endeavour, on route to a new home, and in spite of Earth’s pending expiry date, a mother tries to convince her husband that they should take the last blue-planet bound vessel. Available to purchase through Aesthetica Magazine in paperback.

THIRD CLOSEST TO THE SUN, winner of the Audio Arcadia Short Story Prize, 2015, is published in On Another Plane: a Collection of Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Stories. As the only survivor of a plane crash, Daniel seeks an explanation at the Soul Centre: an organisation who can map the route to the Divine. In exchange for his money, Daniel receives his answer inside a small, black bottle. Available to purchase through Amazon in paperback and ebook, Lulu in paperback and ebook, and through Barnes and Noble and Kobo.