David Gates (born January 8, 1947) is an American journalist and novelist. His first novel, Jernigan (1991), about a dysfunctional one-parent family, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. This was followed by a second novel, Preston Falls (1998), and a short story collection, The Wonders of the Invisible World (1999). He has published short stories in Esquire magazine, Ploughshares, GQ, Grand Street, and TriQuarterly.
Until 2008, he was a senior writer in the Arts section at Newsweek magazine, specializing in articles on books and music.
He teaches in the graduate writing program at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont and at The New School in Manhattan, New York.