Manchester writer David Hartley will be in residence at Stationen i Svenshögen just outside of Gothenburg City of Literature, where he plans to work on his weird fiction timeslip novella, The City of Good Thoughts, inspired by his explorations of the edgelands and border spaces of Tartu in Estonia.

The work will combine narrative explorations of ecopoetics and neuroqueerness to tell a tale of disconnection and miscommunication in post-Brexit Europe. He also aims to stage a unique & immersive storytelling performance within Stationen during his residency, after the huge success of Embassy of Utopia following work in Tartu and Manchester this year.

“I’m beyond excited to be invited to Sweden to spend a month in a remote and slightly spooky former train station. This will be my first visit to Sweden and it feels like a perfect follow up to the magical time I spent in Estonia earlier this year. The Cities of Literature network is an incredible force for good, and I’m so thrilled to see what Gothenburg has to offer. November can’t come soon enough.” – David Hartley

David is a writer and performer of short fiction from Manchester. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing from The University of Manchester, and his animal-themed short story collection Fauna (Fly on the Wall Press) was longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize. He was writer-in-residence in fellow UNESCO City of Literature Tartu, Estonia for the ‘Bring Your Own Utopia’ project at the 2024 Prima Vista International Literature Festival.

Working with artist Henri Hütt, he created The Forest of Ink & Skin, an immersive, durational storytelling performance about tattoos, Estonian folklore, and forestry. His short fiction has featured in Ambit, Black Static, The Ghastling, and British Fantasy Society, Horizons among many others, and in the summer of 2024 he devised and hosted the two-day spoken word event ‘The Embassy of Utopia’ for our Festival of Libraries 2024.

The residency news coincides with a visit from a team of librarians from Gothenburg to Manchester, where the Manchester City of Literature team will share the work of Greater Manchester Libraries with the delegation.