The Spirit of Wilderness in a Fallen World: Winslow Homer & Eric Aho’s “River Line”
February 8, 2020 § Leave a comment
“A vibrating current of electricity dwells just behind everything in nature and the encounter with the painting, like the encounter with the trout, links you to that current, if only for a fleeting instant. A connection is made between you and something larger. Something important and true. Winslow Homer knew this. Eric Aho knows it too.”
Wrote this essay for the catalog accompanying an exhibition of my good friend Eric Aho’s recent work at the Tayloe Piggott Gallery in Jackson, Wyoming. Very happy to share it here. If you haven’t seen Eric’s work, well you really should.
Two new reviews for A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing
January 17, 2019 § Leave a comment
So pleased to see that positive reviews for the collection continue to trickle in. The two most recent are from the Midwest Book Review and Trout Fisherman, a magazine based in Great Britain. Both reviews are excerpted below. You can read more excerpts and follow links to ALL known reviews here.
“This collection of stories by Tim Weed is grounded in the specificity of its settings, all of which contain hazards of one kind or another: a mountain lake, a jungle peak, an Amazonian river, a prairie giving way to construction, a seashore suddenly overcome by the tide, a city stuck in the past, a snowy slope (or two). But it is also full of mystery, and much of the mystery is cosmic . . . It is written so deftly, with such a light touch, that suspense builds in each story like a gathering storm.” — Patrick Joyce, Midwest Book Review
“Like other talented writers in this genre, Weed is not hampered by the brevity of the medium . . . His denouements are unpredictable and sometimes even merely hinted at, leaving the reader to fall back on his or her own imagination as to how the tale ends, which sounds frustrating but is actually quite a tantalizing device.” — Trout Fisherman (UK)
Order the paperback, ebook, or audiobook at your favorite independent bookstore or IndieBound, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Audible. Limited first-edition hardcovers can still be ordered from these fine independent booksellers!
New short fiction out
November 25, 2018 § Leave a comment
A freshly-minted short story (one of the first to appear post-A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing) is out in Western Press Books’ wonderful new anthology, Manifest West: Transitions & Transformations. The story is titled “Gunnison Gorge.” It concerns a lonely traveler who gives a ride to a mysterious couple on his way to a remote fly fishing river in a wilderness area of central Colorado. He worries that the woman may be in some kind of trouble, and believes himself well-positioned to do something about it.
To read “Gunnison Gorge,” at least for now, you have to order the anthology. But that’s a great thing to do anyway, especially if you want to support literature and/or are interested in writing about the contemporary American west!
Podcast: The Rocky Mountain Writer
October 16, 2018 § Leave a comment
What a pleasure it was to spend part of a recent afternoon having this wide-ranging conversation with Colorado novelist Mark Stevens on The Rocky Mountain Writer podcast.
We discussed many topics of interest to writers and readers, including A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing, travel and fiction, Ecuadorian volcanoes, Venezuela’s Orinoco basin, Eastern Cuba, fiction vs autobiography, the importance of place in fiction, dropping acid and pushing the bounds of objective reality, interiority and loneliness, The Grateful Dead and the Eleusinian Mysteries, fly fishing as metaphor, Ursula K. LeGuin, William Golding’s The Inheritors, Newport MFA & the Cuba Writers Program, and a recap of a talk I gave on “The Essentials of Voice” at RMFW’s Colorado Gold conference in September, 2018.
Listen to the entire podcast here. Mark also did a wonderful followup print interview here, in which we talked about life experience as a point of departure for fiction, the deep sources of story ideas, more on why I think dreams and hallucinations shouldn’t be off-limits for fiction writers, place-based writing as a response to environmental crisis, the challenge of endings, some of my favorite writers, and more. Enjoy!
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)
Vermont Public Radio Interview
April 7, 2017 § Leave a comment
“What I was trying to do was first of all just to tell a good story.”
Really enjoyed my recent conversation with Vermont Public Radio’s Mitch Wertlieb! We discussed writing, fly fishing, avalanches, the Grateful Dead, and other topics related to my newly released short fiction collection, A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing.
Here’s a link to the podcast and transcript of the interview. Have a listen if you’re curious: the whole thing is just under seven minutes long. And here’s a link to the collection, which can be purchased at Amazon, B & N, or by request from your favorite local bookstore!
Advance praise & early reviews: A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER & FLY FISHING
February 17, 2017 § 4 Comments
Deeply honored by these early reactions to my forthcoming short fiction collection, which launches officially on April 7, 2017. Excerpts linked to full reviews:
“From the mountain lakes of the Colorado Rockies to cobbled streets of Spain, this fascinating collection of short stories by Vermont-based writer Tim Weed (Will Poole’s Island) never disappoints. The stories are more about choices than they are about fly fishing or murder, but time and again Weed’s vivid characters in these thirteen tales of dark adventure are forced to confront a vision of themselves—or others—that’s not quite as positive as they’d hoped . . . A Field Guide to Murder and Fly Fishing is a collection you’ll be happy to get lost in.” Julie Reiff (full review at Ploughshares).
“Tim Weed’s A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing is a fiction collection of the first order. I found myself parceling out the stories to make them last. These are stories that will live a long time both on the page and in your heart.” —Joseph Monninger, author of The World as We Know It.
“In his first short story collection, novelist Tim Weed shows his stunningly impressive range—transporting readers from the heights of the Andes and the depths of the Amazon to the backstreets of Rome and Granada. Many of Weed’s stories have a hint of the mysterious, even the supernatural, but they are all grounded in sharply-rendered material worlds so fresh one feels one might step directly into the literary photographs he has created and stroll around for a while. A top-notch debut, not to be missed.”—Jacob Appel, author of Einstein’s Beach House (full review at Goodreads)
“Each story is a jewel, cracking open what matters most: love, family, and our big beautiful planet.” —Ann Hood, author of The Book That Matters Most
“A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing is more than a collection of adventure stories. It is a significant and moving collection of ideas, snapshots, and visions that leave a lasting impression . . . Never predictable, this collection is a must for travelers, adventure seekers, and anyone who cares to examine the depth of [Weed’s] varied and flawed characters.” —Ron Samul (full review at We Are the Curriculum)
Stay tuned for the official announcement of the April 7, 2017 release on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the email newsletter. No need to wait though! Pre-order the collection at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Tim Weed 