Mr Adam Farrer

Professional Services

Photo of Mr Adam Farrer

Current positions

Applications Administrator

Biography

In addition to my day job as an Applications Administrator in DIT, I am a writer, a lecturer and the editor of the creative nonfiction journal The Real Story. I have been a photo lab technician, an illustrator, a ceramicist, a musician, a music journalist and currently work at the University of Salford, where I am the Writer in Residence for Peel Park.

My first book, Cold Fish Soup, a memoir in essays about life on the crumbling Yorkshire coast, was published by Saraband in the UK and the US in 2022. Now in its second printing, it won the Northbound Book Award at the Northern Writers’ Awards. The bestselling audiobook version was a BBC Radio Scotland Audiobook Club pick and reached the shortlist for the Zebralution Audio Award at the 2023 IPG Independent Publishing Awards.

I’ve appeared at many arts and literature festivals across the UK, including the Edinburgh Book Festival, Ilkley Literature Festival, Leeds Lit Fest and the Manchester Literature Festival. I have also made appearances on Radio 4, BBC Radio Manchester and BBC Radio Humberside as well as on independent radio stations and podcasts. My work has featured in numerous journals and publications, including The Guardian, Lunate, Hinterland, Flash Nonfiction Funny (Woodhall Press, 2018), Test Signal (Dead Ink Books/Bloomsbury, 2021) and North Country (Saraband, 2022). I’ve also received commissions to write and perform essays and short stories from The Portico Library (Rewriting the North, 2021) and Levenshulme Old Library (Ghosts at the Old Library, 2022).

In addition to my writing, I have taught memoir and creative nonfiction at the University of Lancaster, The Garsdale Retreat and forthcoming at Moniack Mhor (October 2024). I’ve also worked extensively with young, aspiring writers at Withernsea High School and for the Bury-based youth literacy initiative Pigeons and Doves