New short fiction out in Blueline
June 12, 2017 § Leave a comment
Pleased to see my short story, “The Knife,” out in the lovely new edition of Blueline, a print-only literary magazine dedicated to the “spirit of the Adirondacks.” This is a story that’s been in the works for a long time, involving a young man from the city who moves to rural Vermont to work for an unorthodox businessman who teaches him to hunt, with troubling results.
The story does not appear in A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing, so for now at least, the only way to read it is to order your own copy of Blueline (issue 38).
New Cuba/writing essay up at Cleaver
June 2, 2017 § Leave a comment
“The blackout was a revelation. It happened at around eight PM, in Trinidad, Cuba, on one of those moonless tropical nights that fall so suddenly you barely notice the dusk. This was several years ago—before the loosening of travel regulations that occurred under President Obama—and the number of American tourists remained small . . . At the time of the occurrence described in this essay, I was traveling to the country with cultural tourism groups at least half a dozen times a year.”
Click here to read the full essay.
Collection is a finalist for the International Book Awards
May 23, 2017 § Leave a comment
Honored and very pleased to report that A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing has been chosen as a finalist in the 2017 International Book Awards (Short Story category).
It occurs to me to mention that for a certain kind of person, this collection would make an excellent Father’s Day gift! You can order the beautiful hardcover first edition at IndieBound, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble — or request it from your favorite local bookstore! (ISBN# 978-0997452877). Read all the latest reviews, and check the upcoming events page for a reading or signing near you!
Two new craft articles out . . . and a translation to Italian
May 12, 2017 § Leave a comment
“Classic Omniscience Revisited: Lessons for the Modern Novelist in Thackeray’s 
“A caccia del fantasma de Hemingway All’Avana,” Edizioni Sur (translated by Martina Ricciardi). (Originally “Chasing Hemingway’s Ghost in Havana,” The Millions.)
Book Tour
May 11, 2017 § Leave a comment
The book tour for A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing kicks off this Tuesday, May 16, at The Vermont Book Shop in Middlebury, a town I know and love, having gone to college there! The reading will be hosted by Jenny Lyons, who recently wrote quite a lovely review of the collection for the Addison Independent. Here’s an excerpt:
“These stories bristle with energy and immediacy. The outside world will fall away as the places and people of Weed’s stories inhabit your mind. The writing is spare and meticulous and packs a hefty emotional punch . . . I am not exaggerating when I say this collection kept me up at nights. I just couldn’t stop reading.” (Here’s a link to the full review).
The book tour is a work in progress—new dates will be added as they come in on the Upcoming Events page—but here are the events we have planned so far, with links to the bookstore event pages where available. It would be wonderful to see you out there!
May 16, 2017 – The Vermont Book Shop, Middlebury, VT. Reading from A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER & FLY FISHING (with Dede Cummings of Green Writers Press)
May 27, 2017 – Orvis Flagship Store, Manchester, VT. A joint Orvis/Northshire Bookstore event, 11AM – 2PM: A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER & FLY FISHING
June 22, 2017 – Mitchell’s Book Corner, Nantucket, MA. 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM. Book signing: A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER & FLY FISHING & WILL POOLE’S ISLAND
June 29, 2017 – Harvard Book Store, Cambridge. MA. Reading from A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER & FLY FISHING (with Crystal King & FEAST OF SORROW)
July 1, 2017 – New Hampshire’s Toadstool bookstores: Keene (11AM) & Peterborough (2PM). Reading from A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER & FLY FISHING
August 28, 2017 – Cornelia Street Café, New York City: Cuba Writers Program Reading with Ann Hood, Alden Jones, and Michael Ruhlman (reading from A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER & FLY FISHING)
October 1, 2017, 2PM. Tattered Cover Bookstore, Colfax Avenue, Denver, Colorado. Reading from A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER & FLY FISHING
October 12 – 15 – Brattleboro Literary Festival. Short Story Showcase: Reading from A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER & FLY FISHING
October 21, 2017 – Northern Woodlands Conference, Fairlee, Vermont. Reading and Discussion of A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER & FLY FISHING
A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER & FLY FISHING reviewed by Center for Literary Publishing & Colorado Review
May 9, 2017 § Leave a comment
I’m profoundly honored by Mary Medlin’s in-depth and extremely thoughtful review of A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing at the Center for Literary Publishing. CLP’s Colorado Review is one of the first and most prestigious literary journals to have published a story from the collection (“Six Feet Under the Prairie,” way back in 2004), so it’s a source that I find particularly meaningful. And I love the review! Here’s an excerpt:
“If you seek a guide—on coming of age, lost love, temptations both resisted and surrendered to, and the need to both engage with and respect the planet—Weed’s book is a good choice. It won’t tell you which laws to obey and which to break—but it will show you, with simultaneous beauty and savagery, what will happen either way.”
Read the entire review here.
New interview up at Fiction Writers Review
May 8, 2017 § Leave a comment
Really enjoyed this wide-ranging conversation with the perceptive Art Hutchinson at Fiction Writers Review. We discussed, among other things, extreme sports, the supernatural, foreign and historical settings, pushing the boundaries of conscious perception, and why the inner landscape is something fiction can do better than any other art. Read the whole interview here!
Two new reviews: A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER & FLY FISHING
April 24, 2017 § Leave a comment
Honored to notice the release of two new reviews of A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing. I found these particularly gratifying because they zero in on two specific stories in the collection:
Seven Days takes a unique approach in a piece called “Page 32: Short Takes on Five Books by Vermont Authors,” excerpting a quote from page 32 of each book and using that as a jumping-off point for a brief review. For A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing, the quote lands in the middle of one of my favorites, “Tower Eight,” a story in which, according to reviewer Sadie Williams:
“Weed delves into adolescent friendship and the idea of being an outsider with great care for his characters. The tale begins and ends with one character musing on the reality of the other. The surreal ploy is subtle enough to bring the story into the realm of good literature, making the reader question perceptions of reality . . . Weed’s prose is weightless, and weighty, all at once.”
Matthew Sirois at Necessary Fiction, weighing in with what is without doubt the most academic and “literary” perspective on the collection so far, focuses on a story that hasn’t otherwise received much mention:
“Perhaps the greatest story in Field Guide is “The Money Pill,” whose white, American narrator operates a tourism business in Cuba, not long before its official opening to US visitors . . . “The Money Pill” feels like essential literature—for its self-awareness, its bold impeachment of globalism, and its sultry, sticky atmosphere of arousal and shame.”
Sirois doesn’t pull punches in his criticism either, which I find for the most part fair— though he does take a few ideologically reflexive shots at poor dead Hemingway, whose contributions to world literature are manifold and who was, despite his many flaws, a vigorously anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian figure who was not afraid speak truth to power even at great risk to his career. Nevertheless, Sirois ends the review on a generously effusive note:
“But if we malign Hemingway and his progeny—a bloodline to which A Field Guide to Murder and Fly Fishing could be said to belong—it’s because the archetypes of power from his day have remained in power all along. Tim Weed is a writer who knows how to interrogate those archetypes, smash them open, see what they bleed—and, if necessary, take them fishing.”
My sincere humility and gratitude goes out to the authors of both these reviews.
Order the collection from IndieBound, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble — or request it at your favorite local bookstore. (ISBN# 978-0997452877)
LitHub piece on historical fiction featuring WILL POOLE’S ISLAND
April 24, 2017 § Leave a comment
Take a look at Crystal King’s recent article at Literary Hub regarding the relevance of historical fiction to contemporary society. Crystal, the author of Feast of Sorrow, a gripping new novel on ancient Rome, makes some excellent points about the ways in which the visceral experience of history that comes from reading novels based in the past can inform our understanding of the present. The article also presents the perspectives of ten contemporary historical novelists in whose company I’m quite honored to be included, including Jenna Blum, Anjali Mitter Duva, Margaret George, Heather Webb, and Marjan Kamali. Our current political leaders would do well to read this one!
“Historical Fiction is More Important than Ever: 10 Writers Weigh In.”
A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER & FLY FISHING excerpted at MidCurrent
April 20, 2017 § Leave a comment
Pleased to note that one of my favorite stories in the collection has been excerpted at MidCurrent. In “Keepers,” an amateur sportsman vacationing on an Atlantic resort island leaves his young family behind to go fly-fishing at the edge of the ocean and has occasion to regret it. Read the story here.
Even better, order the complete collection from IndieBound, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble — or request it at your favorite local bookstore! (ISBN# 978-0997452877)
Tim Weed 