Profile and Contact

Bio

Born of Yorkshire stock and raised in the East Riding city of Kingston-upon-Hull, Graham Storrs left school at 17 to work on the trawlers, then did a number of manual and clerical jobs (quantity surveyor, factory hand, gravedigger, pipe-fitter’s mate, accounts clerk, cold-store labourer, and so on) until finally returning to full-time education to take a degree in psychology at the University of Hull and to study for a PhD in psychology at the University of Surrey. There followed some more odd jobs (auditor, human-factors consultant, research fellow, etc.) before he settled into a career in industrial research and development for a major UK software company, specialising in artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction.

Increasingly focusing on user interface design, Graham eventually left the UK to work in Zurich, Switzerland. Whilst still practicing as a UI consultant, he became a divisional manager there and later moved to Sydney, Australia to run a newly-formed multimedia group. While there he moved into a large, global software company to run their Asia-Pacific multimedia team and then to Brisbane to start up a new electronic commerce group. Some years later, he set up his own company to provide user interface design and consultancy to government departments and corporations across Queensland.

All the while this career was underway, Graham was writing – in breaks and luchtimes, on holidays, and while travelling. He wrote primarily science fiction – hard sci-fi, in fact – everything from micro-fiction to great, fat novels, from comedy to space opera, and all the many forms and figures in-between. Yet, although he had had lots of success as a writer of technical articles, of comedic magazine articles, of educational wall-charts, encyclopedia entries, and childrens’ science books (see below) he never managed to publish any fiction.

All that changed very recently when he gave up work, moved to the country, and began to focus on publishing his stories. Since then, he has published several short stories and his first novel, TimeSplash, was acquired by New York small press publisher, Lyrical Press.

Graham has a wife, a daughter, and an Airedale terrier. He lives in rural Queensland some 250 km south of Brisbane on a 46 acre property that is mostly gum and wattle forest with magnificent, granite outcroppings.

Writing Credits

Fiction: Novel

TimeSplash, Lyrical Press, Inc., Feb. 2010.

Fiction: Short Stories

‘Sales Call’ broadcast in Australia on Nick Eales’ Sound and Music, Read by Nick Eales. (Also appears in The Flash Fiction 40 Anthology 2009, Smashwords, ed. Maria Schneider.)

Too Late’, Concept Sci-fi Magazine issue #3.

‘Swan Song’, Concept Sci-fi Magazine issue #6.

‘The Earth Ship’ The Absent Willow Review, Jan. 2009. (Also reprinted in Best Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction of 2009 eds Rick DeCost and Robert Griffin, published by Absent Willow Publishing.)

‘Skyball’ Bewildering Stories, Issue 324.

‘Murathera’s Orgy’ in Masques, CSfG Publishing, ed. G. Polack and S. Hopkins.

‘The City’, Alien Skin Magazine, Vol. VII No. 5.

‘The Shouter and the Chanter’, Alien Skin Magazine, Vol. VIII No. 3.

‘All the Way’, The Future Fire Magazine, Vol 18. (This story also won 3rd place in the Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest, 2009.)

Non-Fiction: Books

The Telecommunications Revolution, Wayland, 1986.

The Robot Age. Wayland, 1986.

The Science of the Senses, Macmillan, 1985 (Published as ‘Understanding the Senses’ in North America.)

Non-Fiction: Articles

I was a regular columnist for Information Exchange and published several series of articles during 1993 and 1994 on the theme of communications, including articles on; group working, the psychology of human communications, communicating in virtual worlds, and customer-facing systems.

Storrs, G. and others. The Hutchinson Encyclopedia, 8th Edition, Hutchinson, 1988 (all the computer entries).

Storrs, G.. Key to Strength Lies in Group Approach. Management Consultancy Magazine, March 1993.

Between 1982 and 1986 I published around 40 articles in computer magazines on subjects such as structured programming methods, programming in Prolog, and artificial intelligence.

In 1984 and 1985 I was the editor of the BCS HCI specialist group’s Newsletter and between 1983 and 1990 was a regular contributor.

I have also published a number of articles in computing trade journals on a variety of subjects and along with various humorous pieces published in New Scientist and elsewhere.

Academic Papers

Storrs, G.. A Metadata Advisor. Proc. ARTINT’85 workshop, CEC, Luxembourg, Sept. 1985, 18-28.

Storrs, G.. Human-Computer Interfaces in the Alvey DHSS Large Demonstrator Project. Proc. Alvey Intelligent Interfaces SIG, October 1986, 42-43.

Storrs, G.. Paper vs Screen: Metadata Issues. Proc. Colloquium “Paper vs Screen: The Human Factor Issues”, IEE, London, 1986.

Storrs, G.. A conceptualisation of Multi-Party Interaction. Interacting with Computers, 1994, 6(2), 173-189.

Storrs, G.. A Conceptualisation of Multi-Party Interaction. Proc. Colloquium “Theory in HCI”, IEE, London, December 1991.

Storrs, G.. A Multiple Agent Model of Human-Computer Interaction. In Abstracts of the Alvey Workshop on Multiple Agent Systems. Redhill, April 1988.

Storrs, G.. User Interface? What’s The Problem? Proc. British HCI Group AGM, May 1992.

Storrs, G.. The Alvey DHSS Large Demonstrator Project Knowledge ANalysis Tool: KANT. Proc. Alvey ILS SIG workshop on Hypertext, 1988.

Storrs, G.. Group Working in the DHSS Demonstrator Project. Proc. European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (EC-CSCW’89), Gatwick, September, 1989.

Storrs, G.. Group Decision Making. In T. Bench-Capon (ed) Knowledge-Based Systems and Legal Applications, Academic Press, 295-308, 1991.

Storrs, G.. The Policy System. In T. Bench-Capon (ed) Knowledge-Based Systems and Legal Applications, Academic Press, 165-182, 1991.

Storrs, G.. The Alvey DHSS Large Demonstrator Project Knowledge ANalysis Tool: KANT. in R. McAleese (ed) Hypertext: Theory into Practice, Intellect, Oxford. 1989, 148-156.

Storrs, G.. An Intelligent Hypertext-Based Training System. In Paul Duffin (ed) KBS In Government ’88, Blenheim Online, 1988, 267-275.

Paice, C, Steeples, C, Goodyear, P, Guimbal, B, Storrs, G., Kelly, S. (1992) Requirements specification for JITOL system development, Deliverable 1, DELTA Project D2015 JITOL, Delta Office, Brussels, 86pp.

Storrs, G.. Towards a Theory of HCI: A Conceptual Model of Human-Computer Interaction. Behaviour and Information Technology, 1989, 8, 323-334.

Storrs, G.. How to Talk About Interaction. Proc. CSCW’92, Toronto, Canada, November 1992.

Storrs, G. and Burton, C.P.. KANT: A Knowledge ANalysis Tool. ICL Technical Journal,1989, 7.

Storrs, G., du Boulay, B. and Gray P.M.D.. A Metadata Advisor: Some Sample Queries. Dept of Computing Science Report, University of Aberdeen, Jan. 1985.

Storrs, G., du Boulay, B. and Gray P.M.D.. Knowledge Representation for the Metadata Advisor. Dept of Computing Science Report, University of Aberdeen, 1985.

Storrs, G. and Rivers, R.. Psychology’s Contribution to Information Technology. Bulletin of the BPS, 1983, 36, 197.

Storrs, G. and Rivers, R.. Where are the Knowledge Engineers? Information Technology Training, 1983, 1, 106-107.

Storrs, G., Rivers, R. and Canter, D.. The Future of Man-Machine Interface Research: A Discussion and a Framework for Research. Applied Ergonomics, 1984, 15, 61-63.

Storrs, G. and Windsor, P.. Rapid Prototyping for User Requirements Capture. Proc. Air Traffic Information Systems ’92. Aviation Technology Communications Ltd.: London. April 1992.

Storrs, G.. Developing Software That People Can Use. In J. Kavanagh (ed) Computing Services Association Official Reference Book 1994. Sterling Publications Ltd. 1993 157-161.

Storrs, G.. Introduction to HCI in Safety-Critical Systems. In F. Redmill and J. Rajan (eds) Human Factors in Safety-Critical Systems, 1997.

Storrs, G.. Working Together. Information Exchange. May/June, 1993.

Storrs, G.. Effective Computer Support for Groups. Paper given at IBM’93, Feb. 1993.

Storrs, G.. JITOL: A European Open Distance Learning Project. Proc. Workgroup Computing, Quadrilect, Olympia, London, Nov. 1993.

Storrs G., The Notion of Task in Human-Computer Interaction, in Proceedings of HCI’95 Conference, People and Computers X, Kirby M.A.R., Dix A.J., Finlay J.E. (eds), Cambridge University Press, pp. 357-365, Aug. 1995.

Storrs, G.. Consumer Oriented Design for Interactive Television. Proc. Interfaces to Real and Virtual Worlds, May 1996, Montpellier, France.

Barden, Rosalind, Storrs, Graham, Tang, Helen, Windsor, Peter, Clifton, Chris. Extending your home with an ITS: building a hypertext-based intelligent tutoring system, Proceedings of Hypertext II, York University, 1989.

Canter, D., Rivers, R. and Storrs, G.. Characterising User Navigation Through Complex Data Structures. Behaviour and Information Technology, 1985, 4, 93-102.

Crawshaw, M., Storrs, G. and Craske, B.. Autokinesis and Sight of the Body. Perception, 1981, 9,

Forder, J., Higgins, C., McDermid, J. and Storrs, G.. SAM—A Tool to Support the Construction, Review and Evolution of Safety Arguments. In F.Redmill and T.Anderson (eds), Directions in Safety-Critical Systems, Springer-Verlag: London, 1993, 195-216.

Gray, P.M.D., Storrs, G. and du Boulay, B.. Knowledge Representations for Database Metadata. Artificial Intelligence Review, 1988, 2, 3-29.

Rivers, R. and Storrs, G.. An experimental study of the use of different command parsers in the retrieval of items from a network-structured database. MMI Unit Report, University of Surrey, 1984.

Windsor, P. and Storrs, G.. A Practical User Interface Design Notation. Interacting with Computers, 1993, 5, 423-438.

Storrs, G.. Customer Care Strategies on the Internet. Customer Care on the Internet, October 1997, Sydney, Australia.

Storrs, G.. The Potential of the Internet for Electronic Commerce. Electronic Commerce and Banking, October 1997, Sydney, Australia.

Other Interests

Music

I have written lots of pop tunes – mostly in a sort of folk-rock-instrumental genre. Some of these I have self-published on two CDs; ‘Never Too Old’ and ‘Land of Green Ginger’. I’ve created a fictitious band Gray Wave under which to pursue this interest. In fact, I do it all myself, composing, playing, and all the post-production is done electronically on my PC.

You can listen to and buy Gray Wave tracks from various music sites (listed below) or buy the CDs from my e-commerce site: Gray Wave. A third CD, ‘Pretty Baby’ is currently in the works.

Listen to Gray Wave on:

Ranting

Everybody needs a place to let off steam at politicians, utilities companies and banks. My ranting blog is called Waving Not Drowning and is only recommended for those who are not politicians or managers in utilities companies and banks.

Contact Me