Dr Louise Tondeur

 

Job Title: Senior Lecturer Email Address: L.Tondeur@roehampton.ac.uk

Biog

Dr Louise Tondeur grew up in Dorset and went on to study
for a degree in Drama at the University of East Anglia. She
became a Drama teacher before returning to UEA to do the
MA in Creative Writing. She is now a Senior Lecturer in Creative
Writing at Roehampton University.

Publications

Louise has published two novels: The Water's Edge, and The
Haven Home for Delinquent Girls, both with Review, several
short stories and some poetry, as well as a journal articles on
Drama in Education and a textbook called Drama for Students
with Special Needs (First and Best).

Research Interests

Her PhD, Reading Hair Queer, was completed at Reading
University between 2003 and 2007. It investigates the link
between reading which queers, hair, death and the lesbian
as monster.

Louise contributed to the first collection of essays on body
hair: Women and Body Hair: The Last Taboo, Karin Lesnick-
Oberstein ed (2007). Her research interests include writing
the novel and short fiction, community theatre, women's
history, queer and feminist theory, and cultural
interpretation of the body. Louise was recently made a
Roehampton Teaching Fellow and is working on a Mind
Mapping project.

An Extract from The Water's Edge (2003)

My name is Rice. After my mother died, I stayed next door
with an aunt, because I had no other rela-tives. In fact,
Auntie Something wasn’t a relative either. She was just a
neighbour. After a week of watching me wear the same
clothes and eat cereal straight from the packet, with my
too-thin legs dan-gling from her kitchen table, Auntie
Something sat me down, made me think and think of any
relatives I might have overlooked, and then, after some
sleuthing in my mother’s address books, she phoned
Beatrice Tamarack. Beatrice ran a hotel in Bournemouth,
where my mother had once lived and where I was born. I
stood in Auntie Something’s pink hallway and listened to her
saying into the phone that I needed someone to look after
me and that her house wasn’t big enough because she had
six grandchildren to think about.
After the funeral, Auntie Something held a party in her front
room and spent most of the time guarding the buffet to
make sure no one had more than their fair share. I met
Beatrice in front of the beef and mustard sandwiches. She
turned out to be a chunky middle-aged woman with a round
face, a small nose and short brown hair. When she took hold
of my hand, I noticed that she was wearing sensible shoes.
Then she said something about being good friends with my
mother at school, and that she was sorry. I nodded my head.
She said she’d be delighted for me to come and live with her,
but that I must understand I’d have to help out around the
hotel because she wouldn’t be able to afford it otherwise,
and she looked worried then, but the conversation left my
head along with all the other things that peo-ple said to me
that day over Auntie Something’s china plates and teacups.
‘I have to get back for the hotel guests,’ she said, ‘but you
can come on Saturday.’

Copyright Louise Tondeur

Praise for The Water's Edge and The Haven Home for Delinquent Girls

The Water's Edge is full of surprises...the quirkiness and quiet
beauty of its characters...make this an unusual debut The Big
Issue.

Tondeur’s brand of homespun gothic and seaside camp is a
memorable one... tender and eccentric. Independent.

Publications

Louise Tondeur (2009) Creative Visualisation, Writing and Education, 47.

Karin Lesnick-Oberstein ed (2007) The History of Pubic Hair Or Reviews Responses to Terry Eagleton's After Theory, In: The Last Taboo: Women and Body Hair.

Louise Tondeur (2004) The Haven Home For Delinquent Girls, .

Louise Tondeur (2003) The Water's Edge, .

Louise Tondeur (2002) Drama for Students with Special Needs, .

Membership of professional bodies

The Creative Writing Programme is a member of NAWE and English Pen.

Examining Experience

Louise is external examiner on the Bath Spa MA in Creative Writing.

Undergraduate courses taught at Roehampton:

Creative Writing

Postgraduate courses taught at Roehampton:

Creative & Professional Writing