errata 404

I am currently well into the idea of guerilla writing and I'm working it into a pitch I'm putting forward for a project. You know the concept of guerilla gardening, right? A bunch of greenies go round and plant stuff in urban areas that are unloved and uncared for. I remember sunflowers near Blackfriars, opposite the pub where I used to go to for my Friday lunchtime pie and a pint treat with my Scouse art director; Northerners in exile together. The other day, I spotted some tomatoes growing by the multi-storey near the Arndale. So think about guerilla writing as something a bit along those lines: basically leaving short stories or poems in places you wouldn't expect, like library books or magazines in dentists' waiting rooms or phone books in bars or under car windscreen wipers.


So I'm proper liking my mate David Gaffney's new literature project Errata, which is running until January in Cornerhouse Bookshop as part of Micro Commissions.

David - author of flash fiction collections Sawn-off Tales, Aromabingo and The Half-life Of Songs plus novel Never Never, and whose sound installation Boy You Turn Me is on at Birmingham Book Festival until 16 October (see my review on Creative Times here) - gave me the skinny on the project, which explores ideas around truth and authenticity.

Says David: "Errata slips are inserted into magazines and books to correct errors or typographical mistakes, but I'm using the format in a different way – to disseminate lies and tell stories. Each of my slips relates to a page of content in different periodicals in Cornerhouse Bookshop, adding a fictional dimension to the publication, disrupting the reader’s engagement with the text and throwing into doubt the veracity of what they are reading. As the slips are put in only certain magazines, and secretly, you won't know whether you will find one or not."

Hahaha, subversive. And they're funny too; I've been getting my kicks out of proofreading them. Scan the QR code for more or, if you're so last century, click here.