THE GATEPOST cover reveal & call for early readers
January 8, 2026 § Leave a comment
I’m thrilled to give you a first look at the cover of my upcoming novel, to be released in paperback, audiobook, or ebook on May 26, 2026!
The Gatepost is about a lost scientist desperate to find his way home to rural Vermont, and a daughter trying to solve the mystery of her father’s disappearance twenty years later. It’s a contemporary love story wrapped in a speculative thriller blending science and ancient cosmology that propels its characters beyond the boundaries of space, time, and the human mind. You can read more about it here.
If this sounds like somthing you might enjoy, please consider preordering it online in the format of your choice. Robust preorders can demonstrate a groundswell of early interest in a book, creating incentives for booksellers to stock and display it prominently in their shops. Preorders can trigger on-line algorithms that increase a novel’s visibility, giving it a shot at reaching a broader range of interested readers. You might think of it as an exercise in delayed gratification: a gift to yourself scheduled to arrive right in time for your summer reading adventures. And I greatly appreciate your support!
I’m also recruiting early readers willing to post online ratings and/or brief reviews of The Gatepost in advance of the publication date. Early ratings and reviews on Goodreads, StoryGraph, and other sites can be of immense importance in getting a novel like this out to a broader readership. Digital galleys are available to download on NetGalley, or shoot me a message here. Once again, I very much appreciate your help!
Big Blog Round-Up: recent interviews, reviews, and features about THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT
June 6, 2025 § Leave a comment
It has been such a pleasure as well as a humbling honor to receive a whole slew of positive attention from these amazing fellow novelists and book bloggers in the days following the official launch of The Afterlife Project. My profound gratitude goes out to you all. Highly recommended to click through, read the blogs, and subscribe.
An online interview with Mark Stevens for his blog, Don’t Need a Diagram. A highly accomplished mystery and thriller novelist himself, Mark is also one of the best literary citizens I know. His questions were acute and thought-provoking, leading to what was for me a highly substantive and enjoyable discussion about dark fiction, climate change, National Geographic, paleoclimatology, short fiction, and the solace of geological time. The interview is followed by a very perceptive book review.
Quick excerpt: “My hope for this novel is that it will offer a sense of solace, and even a kind of optimism about the future . . . to show how important it is to slow down and really try to understand what we currently have and what we stand to lose.”
An online interview with Cliff Garstang for his regular blog feature, “I’ve Got Questions.” Cliff is also a fellow novelist, author of the excellent The Last Bird of Paradise and several other books, and another very good literary citizen. Long ago we spent a very memorable week together in Tepotzlán, Mexico, taking a writing masterclass with the great American novelist Russell Banks. This brief interview touches upon the inspiration for The Afterlife Project, some of the food and music I associate with the book, and the potential of fiction to play a role in saving the human species.
Quick excerpt: “Fiction, more than any other art form, enables a reader to experience the world from within a consciousness that’s not their own. Imagining alternative lives and alternative futures—sometimes very dark ones—from the relative safety and comfort of the bedside or a favorite reading chair, putting ourselves in the position of fictional characters as they confront tense and difficult challenges, and then processing those experiences and the emotions they evoke into wisdom or at least working theories about life, is a cathartic, healthy, and uniquely human practice.”
I’m gobsmacked by this glowing review on @tamsparks’ influential book blog, Books, Bones & Buffy. Here’s an excerpt: “Tim Weed’s latest novel is a gripping and emotional time travel/post apocalyptic adventure with a fair amount of science backing everything up. It’s also full of themes like found family and even a bit of romance, but mostly it’s an ode to our planet’s natural wonder and beauty, as well as a cautionary tale about humanity’s downfall. Weed masterfully tells his story in two timelines with a great deal of distance between them—more than 10,000 years!—and it’s surprisingly effective.”
Very much enjoyed writing this guest post for Chuck Wendig’s powerhouse literary blog, Terrible Minds: “Five Things I Learned While Writing The Afterlife Project.” This post touches on the surprising power of dark fiction, one-way time travel, the nature of time, the fate of humanity, and more. My thanks to Chuck for the helping hand he regularly offers to less well-known authors. His is a blog every novelist should bookmark and read regularly, not only for the trademark madcap sense of humor, but also for its deep underlying wisdom.
Quick Excerpt: “Dark fiction isn’t for everyone, but if you like it—if you’re drawn to the writing of Stephen King, for example, or Shirley Jackson or Margaret Atwood or our own Chuck Wendig—then it’s possible that you’re the kind of reader for whom the horrific offers a particular kind of reading pleasure. Because let’s face it: there’s power in darkness. It’s an essential source of narrative drive for one thing—what keeps the pages turning—and it’s also a healthy response to personal stress and the ongoing shit-show of current events.”
My friend and Boston writing colleague Crystal King created a fascinating pairing for a book giveaway on her highly recommended substack, Tasting Life Twice. Quick excerpt: “The Afterlife Project pulled me into a chilling future that felt all too real, with a story so original and propulsive I couldn’t put it down.”
A very nice review from M.K. Tod on her blog, A Writer of History. M.K. is a Canadian historical novelist whom I first met back in 2014 when I published my first novel, also historical, Will Poole’s Island. At the time she asked me to write something about world-building in historical fiction — but it turns out those insights, as M.K. points out, are also very applicable to writing about the future!
Finally, this thoughtful review from Dr. Laura Tisdall, author, historian, and senior lecturer at Newcastle University (UK): “I was utterly immersed in The Afterlife Project, which covers some grim ground but . . . finds unexpected hope . . . And unlike so many recent eco-fictions that seek to show, as this does, that humans are merely a part of nature and not the be all and end all . . . Weed avoids nihilism, recognising the value of humanity but also its fragility. Highly, highly recommended, especially for MacInnes fans.”
New profile in UCSD/GPS alumni magazine
November 21, 2024 § 4 Comments
My thanks to reporter and editor Douglas Girardot for this article from the School of Global Policy & Strategy (GPS) at the University of California, San Diego. I got a master’s degree in international environmental policy here way back when and have never lived to regret it. Honored that they chose to feature an alum who has pursued, shall we say, a slightly ‘unconventional’ career path for a graduate from this distinguished program.
Live-remote classes for writers with novels-in-progress
March 20, 2020 § Leave a comment
Working on a novel? Not too late to join me for these live-remote classes, part of Grub Street’s acclaimed Novel Revision Series!
March 21, 2020. Genre, Concept, Premise, Theme – in which we’ll come up with answers to an essential question: What’s your novel-in-progress “about”?
April 18, 2020. Dramatic Structure & Narrative Drive – in which we’ll explore the hidden structures common to all good novels and the secrets to creating a page-turning read.
Keep tabs on all my upcoming classes and events here.
Paperback release, Douro River, Eastern Cuba, and other news
April 24, 2018 § Leave a comment
Dear friends,
It’s been a year since the release of A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing in hardcover. This is just a quick post to let you know that the paperback launches today! It’s a nice little book I think, and I’m pleased to report that since the hardcover release there’s been plenty of good news. It’s been shortlisted for two international book awards (one of which is still in process—please keep your fingers crossed), has resulted in a lot of good press including interviews on both Vermont and New Hampshire Public radio (links to both podcasts here), and has continued to garner favorable reviews.
Another bit of news that I’m thrilled to share is that I’ll be starting a job this June on the core faculty of a new low-residency graduate writing program: the “Newport MFA in Creative Writing,” based at Salve Regina College in Newport, Rhode Island (and Havana!). This is the brainchild of my friend, the brilliant Ann Hood, and it’s an exciting new venture in the writing world. If any of you’ve been contemplating a writing MFA, I highly recommend that you check it out!
The coming year is also shaping up to be exciting in terms of travel: I’ll be the National Geographic featured lecturer on a new Douro River cruise navigating from Porto, Portugal, to Salamanca, Spain and back (Sept 23 – Oct 3). I’ll be leading a new off-the-beaten-track program in Eastern Cuba in collaboration with my publisher, Green Writers Press (Nov 5 – 12). And in May, 2019, we’ll be offering the fourth annual Cuba Writers Program in Havana and one other Cuban destination (TBA).
If you’re interested in any of these and/or in other adventures in the months and years to come, you can find details and keep track of evolving dates here. Maybe we’ll see you out in the world! (And don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’d like explore ways to organize an affordable custom trip to Cuba.)
Here’s a photo I just took of the new paperbacks. If you want to get your hands on a copy, now’s an auspicious time to buy one! A wave of purchases around the release date can trigger algorithms that can make books more visible to the public, which is of course extremely helpful for ambitious and little-known authors such as yours truly (as are reviews on Amazon or Goodreads, by the way).
As always, thanks for being out there. I’m deeply grateful for your friendship and support. Please don’t hesitate to send a note if you want to run something by me or simply catch up. Meanwhile, here’s wishing you a happy and productive spring!
Warm regards,
Tim
A conversation about writing with James Scott of TK Podcast
August 29, 2017 § Leave a comment
Really enjoyed my conversation with James Scott on the latest episode of his terrific series of literary conversations known as the TK Podcast. James is a bestselling novelist (The Kept) and an excellent interviewer, with a real knack for asking questions about writing and life that lead to interesting places.
We talked about travel, the writing life, the binary nature of solitude, National Geographic, short fiction, how to sequence stories in a short fiction collection, the Cuba Writers Program, Ingmar Bergman, drug writing, Green Writers Press, Denis Johnson, The Grateful Dead, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Paul Bowles, and much, much more. Highly recommended if you’re a writer and/or a fan of literary podcasts! Here’s the link.
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
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 