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.
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.”
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!
New Reviews: A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER & FLY FISHING
March 31, 2017 § 1 Comment
Two new reviews out. One from the distinguished Charles Butterfield writing in our great local newspaper the Brattleboro Reformer, and the other from the national Small Press Book Review. Very happy about both of these!
“Weed begins with the assumption that his readers are ready and able to see that the world is not as it seems. Things happen we cannot anticipate, and men change in surprising ways. Some of Weed’s stories verge on magical realism . . But most of these tales reside in the world of the senses. No ghosts, fantastical creatures or extra-planetary aliens move these stories. But visions, dreams and hallucinations do. Humans and their sometimes mysterious natures are all it takes for Weed to spin fiction of the first order.” Charles Butterfield, Brattleboro Reformer (full review here.)
“As readers, we have been given passports into Tim Weed’s fictional worlds . . . We cannot alter the fates of those we have joined but, if we give them a chance, they could alter ours.” Small Press Book Review (full review here)
This page has updated links to all reviews of A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER & FLY FISHING.
New Profile up at The Commons
March 29, 2017 § Leave a comment
A nice profile of yours truly is up at The Commons, a first-rate independent newspaper covering my home territory of Windham County, Vermont. You might be tempted to call it a “puff piece,” but the author, Richard Henke, asked some good questions and the article is almost entirely accurate. I’m definitely not complaining! Give it a read if you’re interested.
Eight Novels to Prepare You for the End of Civilization at Talking Writing
March 21, 2017 § Leave a comment
Yet another new article up, this one at Talking Writing. Here’s a quick excerpt:
Novels act like beacons in stormy weather. Even when they promise an escape from the daily onslaught, novels light a path forward in ways nonfiction can’t. They allow readers to live out life’s worst-case scenarios from within the safety of their own imaginations so that when something terrible actually happens—a personal tragedy, a natural catastrophe, a deadly plague—it’s not a complete surprise. As a reader, I’m an easy mark for dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction, and I’m often struck by the unique way such novels deliver not only practical strategies for surviving the unthinkable but emotional strategies, too—which ultimately may be more important. It’s hard to overstate the solace good fiction can provide even in the darkest of times.
So, if you’re stocking the shelves of your survival shelter, don’t forget to throw in a few gripping novels. Here are eight that strike me as especially pertinent right now.
Read the full article here!
Brattleboro Literary Festival
September 23, 2016 § Leave a comment
This year’s logo is based on a painting by the magnificent Vermont artist Julia Zanes
Very much looking forward to this year’s Brattleboro Literary Festival! This has evolved into one of the premier literary events of the year, anywhere in the country, and I’m so pleased to be part of it. As a member of the author committee, I’ll have the great honor and pleasure of introducing fellow writers Sunil Yapa, Nancy Marie Brown, Jonathan Lee, and Meg Little Reilly.
If you’re anywhere near southern Vermont the weekend of October 13 – 16, 2016, you’d be crazy not to stop in. All events are free and open to the public!
The Historical Novel Society reviews Will Poole’s Island
February 11, 2015 § Leave a comment
The Historical Novel Society is an organization I respect, so I am quite honored that they have deemed Will Poole’s Island important enough to feature. Their reviewer made some interesting points about the book, and I think that in the final analysis he “got” it. What more can a first-time novelist ask?
Here’s the quote the reviewer references regarding my approach to mythic thinking within the novel:
“Unless we can find some way to understand the reality of mythic thinking we remain prisoners of our own language, our own thoughtworld. In our world one story is real, the other, fantasy. In the Indian way of thinking both stories are true because they describe personal experience . . . Historical events happened once and are gone forever. Mythic events return like the swans of spring . . . They are essential truths, not contingent ones.” – Robin Ridington
Read the full review here.
Tim Weed 