Publishers Weekly reviews THE GATEPOST
March 17, 2026 § Leave a comment
Publishers Weekly is widely regarded as the most influential trade magazine for the book industry, read by publishers, librarians, booksellers, newspaper and magazine editors, and even (ahem!) film industry types. PW reviews have a great deal of influence on which books get noticed, bought, and promoted in the media. Needless to say, I’m on cloud nine to have this new Publisher’s Weekly review of my forthcoming novel The Gatepost, arriving to bookstores near you (or your mailbox if you preorder) on May 26, 2026! Here’s an excerpt:
“Twenty years before the start of this spellbinder from Weed (The Afterlife Project), Professor Gregory Weatherhead, an expert in Mesoamerican shamanism, disappeared from his home in Vermont. Now, his daughter, Esme, is struggling to write a book about him. Convinced the disappearance is connected to a cave Weatherhead discovered on his property, she hires geologist Lucas St. Pierre to find the site. An old field journal also reveals that just before he vanished, Weatherhead had been experimenting with psilocybin mushrooms . . . Weed does a nice job interposing the present mystery with Weatherhead’s research in both Vermont and Oaxaca, and balances esoteric mysticism with touching contemporary detail. This well-researched tale is sure to entertain.”
You can read the full review here. Preordering from your local bookstore or via one of the links here is helpful and very much appreciated!
Book Giveaway: Three signed first edition hardcovers of A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER & FLY FISHING
March 1, 2026 § Leave a comment
“From the mountain lakes of the Colorado Rockies to cobbled streets of Spain, this fascinating collection of short stories never disappoints. A Field Guide to Murder and Fly Fishing is a collection you’ll be happy to get lost in.” — Ploughshares.
“I found myself consuming [these] thirteen tightly wound tales with addictive delight.” — Fiction Writers Review
“These stories bristle with energy and immediacy. 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.” — Addison Independent
Goodreads Book Giveaway
A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing
by Tim Weed
Giveaway ends March 31, 2026.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
“Tim Weed proves himself a skilled creator of a sense of place . . . each story deposits one definitively into a geography, of mind and map.” — The Boston Globe
“Provocative and memorable, this collection strikes all the right chords.” — Main Street Rag
“Weed’s short stories draw us away from the blue light of device screens. Under the blue skies and dark waters of A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing, readers can feel pain, empathy, and purpose bubbling out from the sharp-detailed mental images.” — Pleiades
Kirkus reviews THE GATEPOST
February 13, 2026 § 6 Comments
It’s always touch-and-go when it comes to the big trade publications that specialize in forthcoming books. Will they review the book, and if so, will the review be positive? It’s quite important too, because these publications are influential with librarians and booksellers, and can be leading indicators regarding the potential success of new books out in the marketplace. Kirkus reviewers in particular have a reputation for being pretty tough, so you can imagine my relief to find that THE GATEPOST’s first official review was overwhelmingly positive:
“A hallucinatory thriller is a fascinating concept, and the plot is a treat . . . A compellingly trippy journey.”
Read the full review here. Preorder the book here. If you’re a bookseller, librarian, or reviewer, download a free early review copy here.
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!
Vermont Public Radio interview with Mitch Wertlieb
June 12, 2025 § Leave a comment
What a fun and interesting conversation with Mitch Wertlieb on Vermont Public’s Vermont Edition! We talked about the inspirations and scientific research behind THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT, time travel, post-apocalyptic fiction, paleo-climatology, novel research in the great outdoors, whether stories can move the needle on the climate debate, and much more.
I drove up to VPR’s Colchester studios to record the show, and although we’ve spoken in the past this is my first time meeting Mitch in person. He’s a truly wonderful guy and a GREAT interviewer. If you’re remotely interested in any of these topics, listen to the whole interview here. (As an added bonus, the second half of the segment has beta on some great uncrowded hiking trails in Vermont!)
My thanks to Vermont Public, Mitch Wertlieb, Jon Ehrens, Andrea Laurion, Isabella Nugent, Page One Media, Podium Publishing, and the talented, lovely, and indefatigable Julia Jensen.
Seven Days reviews THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT
June 4, 2025 § Leave a comment
This penetrating and wise review is a particular honor; Seven Days is a venerable journalistic institution here in my home state of Vermont. My thanks go out the reviewer, Margot Harrison, who is a novelist herself, and whose insights therefore carry a particular charge for me.
My favorite excerpt below, though I recommend that you read the whole review here.
“Remembering a trip to Dinosaur National Monument as a child, when he first sensed the “otherworldly vastness of geological time,” Nick reminisces about a vanished world in which humanity’s own extinction was already foreshadowed:
‘From Dinosaur they drove west, into the heart of fossil gas extraction country, stopping for another picnic dinner at a highway pullout: cheddar cheese, summer sausage, and more of those improbably fat blueberries. Light and shadow; the golden-red dusk still hazy from the forest fires; the tall orange flames of the flaring wells like monumental torches arranged across the desert landscape.’
In such passages, Weed reminds us why cli-fi matters: The tools of fiction, including elegiac literary prose, empower him to push past numbing statistics and bring home the impact of environmental crisis on the individual.”
Television Interview: “Here We Are” with Wendy O’Connell on BCTV
May 26, 2025 § Leave a comment
Such a fun conversation! We talked about my early life, travel, writing, teaching, The Afterlife Project, and much more. Wendy is an excellent, relaxed interviewer, skilled at putting her interlocutor at ease. The words and laughter flowed, and the thirty-odd minutes went by so fast. This will be up on YouTube indefinitely, so if you’re interested bookmark it, and if you’ve got half an hour some time, give it a watch!
THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT is a Middlebury Magazine Editors’ Pick
March 10, 2025 § 1 Comment
It’s an honor to receive this notice from my alma mater, with a nice little book review as well. Here’s a pull quote:
“The dangers [the characters] endure along the way are set against an unfolding and impossible love story across the vastness of geological time, as the scientists work to keep humans in existence. It may sound like an end-of-the-world tale, but it defines the strength and bravery of human beings and what they will do to preserve this precious thing we call life in the face of overwhelming odds.” — Middlebury Magazine
Good news from the 92nd Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Awards
August 2, 2023 § Leave a comment
Happy to report that two unpublished short stories have earned nods in the Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition (Eighth Place & Honorable Mention, Mainstream/Literary Short Story category). The stories, “Under the Highway” and “Seabirds,” are part of a collection, Tickets to the Reckoning, that’s currently being shopped around to publishers. Hopefully it will be available for your reading pleasure soon!
New short fiction up at Pangyrus
January 18, 2023 § Leave a comment
‘Today a flock of crows has gathered. Half a dozen of the birds with their glossy blue-black feathers, come to peck at beetles he supposes, or some other small insect involved in the decomposition of dead matter. He strides up to the crows, brandishing his cane.
“Bugger off, now! This is a burial site, not a feeding place for scavengers!”
The crows tilt their heads to stare up at him. Their obsidian eyes are insolent, almost bored-looking, by the sight of the heavy filigreed cane-head whistling through the air above them.
“Very well, then. But don’t say I didn’t give you fair warning.”
He takes careful aim and swings. The crows flap off, but one wheels, cawing and swooping belligerently back down at him. He aims the cane and swings again, and this time he feels the jolt of an actual connection. The crow lets out a low grunt as it flips to the ground, one black wing jutting out from its broken body as it struggles to get up from the hemlock needles.
He brings the cane-head down on the crow’s skull; it collapses with an audible crunch, like a boiled egg. He draws the blade and skewers the creature’s broken body, walking it up into the forest where he digs a little trench in the sodden ground, kicks some leaves over it, and wipes the blade clean.
That’s more like it now, he says to himself, sheathing the blade as he walks down toward the house. You just have to confront them one by one.“
Read the whole story here. Listen to a brief audio piece about the historical figure who inspired the story here.
Tim Weed 