Line of sight

David Gaffney lives in Manchester. He is the author of the novels Never Never (Tindall Street 2008) and All The Places I've Ever Lived ( Urbane 2017) plus the short story collections Sawn-Off Tales (Salt 2006), Aromabingo (Salt 2007), The Half-Life of Songs (Salt 2010) and More Sawn-Off Tales (Salt 2013). 

He has written articles for The Guardian, Sunday Times, Financial Times and Prospect magazine, and was a judge for the Bridport Prize. His story The Staring Man was featured in Best British Short Stories. His graphic novel with Dan Berry, The Three Rooms In Valerie's Head, was published in 2018 on Top Shelf, and David and Dan's current graphic novel Rivers is out now, also on Top Shelf, and their third graphic novel, Dig Deep is out in 2027 on Top Shelf. David's novel, Out Of The Dark, is out now on Confingo. His short story collection Concrete Fields (Salt Publishing, 2023) was longlisted for the Edgehill prize, and his pamphlet, Whale, came out in 2024 on Osmosis Press. 

His experimental prose collection Lakes of Titan is out in 2025 on Above/Ground press from Ottawa. He is Senior Manager for literature at Arts Council England. The Guardian said: ‘One hundred and fifty words by Gaffney are more worthwhile than novels by a good many others.' See www.davidgaffney.org for more.

PROJECTS 

David also works with literature in a live setting and on commissions, residencies, collaborations and in communities. He devised and delivered Buildings Crying Out, using lost cat posters (Lancaster LitFest 2009); 23 Stops To Hull, a set of stories about every junction on the M62 (Humber Mouth Literature Festival 2009); Sawn-off Opera, with composer Ailís Ní Ríain (BBC Radio 3); Destroy PowerPoint, for Edinburgh Festival 2009; The Poole Confessions, stories told in a mobile confessional box (Poole Festival 2010); Station Stories, in which six writers linked to the audience with wireless headphones performed in Manchester's Piccadilly Railway Station, (Manchester Literature Festival 2011); Errata Slips (Cornerhouse Manchester 2011); and Men Who Like Women Who Smell of Their Jobs (Manchester Literature Festival 2014), with painter Alison Erika Forde. He also delivered Fax Fiction for the Reflex festival (2019) Manchester, a literature project in which six writers responded to recent obsolete technology and performed live using these devices, Flash in The Van for Burnley Literature Festival ( 2019), Mac Stories for Macclesfield LIT festival ( 2019) Stockport Stories (2024) as part of Stockport’s year of culture, Tootally Wired ( 2024) with Manchester Histories Festival and Sleeve Notes ( 2025) for Record Store Day. David was also artistic lead for Arts Council funded socially-engaged project PowerLines with Salford Welfare Rights and was writer in residence at the Whitehaven Whale project ( 2022.)David delivers talks to creative writing students across the north at Manchester Metropolitan University, University of Manchester, Salford University, Chester University, Edge Hill University, and teaches for Arvon too. He has written articles for the Guardian, Sunday Times, Financial Times and Prospect magazine and judged the 2015 Bridport prize. In 2016 David was a visiting fellow at the University of Manchester.