National Geographic Student Expeditions in Cuba
July 1, 2016 § 2 Comments
Very excited to be participating in the first ever NatGeo student programs to Cuba. I’ll be starting out with the first group toward the end of their program in the province of Santa Clara, a few hours east of the capital, and then joining the second group for the beginning of their program in Havana. Traveling to Cuba, by now, feels something akin to going home for me. It’s been a few months, so I’m looking forward to checking in on the evolving situation!
I’m also excited to be traveling with student groups, because leading student groups is how I spent most of my early career in educational travel. I relish the sense of adventure that usually arises within such groups—and in my experience NatGeo students are an exceptionally positive, creative, and intellectually curious bunch. It will be hot this time of year, but that’s nothing to worry about, as we’ll be on an island surrounded by crystalline blue water!
Rudyard Kipling Award for Young Writers
June 8, 2016 § Leave a comment
What a fun privilege it was to serve as a judge for the Rudyard Kipling Award for Young Writers, the culminating ceremony for which was held this past weekend at the Latchis Theater in Brattleboro. The purpose of the award is to encourage local youngsters to engage with writing and literature, and to celebrate the significant and little-known legacy of Rudyard Kipling in the local area.
Click here to listen to a brief podcast of a recent radio interview about the award.
And if you get a chance to visit the great writer’s historic home, Naulakha, near the base of Black Mountain in Brattleboro, it’s a magical place and I highly recommend it. The contest winner’s prize included an overnight with her family and friends!
Cuba Writers Program!
May 4, 2016 § Leave a comment
Very excited to be heading down to Havana for the first annual Cuba Writers Program, which I’m launching in partnership with two astoundingly talented writing colleagues, Alden Jones and Ann Hood. If you’re feeling a bit of “FOMO,” never fear! We’ll be offering it again next year.
And if you want to explore the idea of setting up your own trip to Cuba, either independently or in a preexisting program, don’t hesitate to send me a note. I’m happy to point you in the right direction and/or help you to make the soup-to-nuts arrangements. There’s never been a better time to go to Cuba!
Collection is Semifinalist for Subito Press Book Prize
November 26, 2015 § 2 Comments
Pleased to note that my short fiction collection, “A Field Guide to Murder and Fly Fishing,” was named a semifinalist for the 2015 Subito Press Book Prize. So far, earlier versions of the same book have also been shortlisted for the New Rivers Press Many Voices Project, the Autumn House Fiction Prize, and the Lewis-Clark Press Discovery Award. Stories within the collection have won a Writer’s Digest Popular Fiction Award and the Grand Prize of Outrider Press’s The Mountain anthology, and have been shortlisted for many awards including the Lightship Publishing International Literature Prize, the Glimmer Train Short Story Award, The Richard Yates Short Story Award, and others.
It’s been a long road for these stories, all of which have appeared previously in literary magazines and/or anthologies, but a final home may be in sight. Stay tuned for more exciting news about the collection . . .
Northern Spain by Rail with National Geographic
September 15, 2015 § 3 Comments
What a privilege it is to be heading back to Spain, the country that I’ve long considered my home away from home. This is a special trip, too, my first time on National Geographic’s fascinating Northern Spain by Private Rail. We’ll be starting in Santiago de Compostela and making our way across the northern breadth of the Iberian peninsula to San Sebastián, all aboard the extremely well appointed Transcantábrico Gran Lujo.
Of course we’ll be stopping quite a bit along the way, to explore Romanesque chapels, mountain villages, and prehistoric cave art. I’ll be giving a series of lectures focusing on Spanish history, the life and times of Francisco de Goya, and Ernest Hemingway’s involvement in the Spanish Civil War, and of course I’m hoping to be able to get a bit of good writing done too. All in all, much to look forward to!
Follow me on Instagram or Facebook if you’d like to see photos from the experience!
Fall Writing Classes at GrubStreet and the Brattleboro Literary Festival
August 28, 2015 § Leave a comment
Very excited for this fall’s fiction classes. At Grub Street, I’ll be teaching four installments of a brand new eight part Novel Revision series. If you’re working on a novel, it would be great to have you in Boston for a class! Here’s the link. Check ’em out!
To kick off this year’s Brattleboro Literary Festival on Friday, October 2, I’ll be joining two very talented fellow writers, my Grub Street colleague Howard Axelrod and my good friend and local Salonista shaman, Suzanne Kingsbury, in offering these exciting workshops. For a podcast of a radio interview with Festival director Sandy Rouse and yours truly discussing the workshops, click here. If you’re planning to be anywhere near Vermont on that day—and it’s a great time to be here—I highly recommend that you take one!
Hemingway talk at the Brattleboro Museum
August 24, 2015 § Leave a comment
Thrilled to be giving this talk at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, next Thursday, September 3, at 7pm. If you’re in the neighborhood, I’d love to see you there!
The Expatriate Novelist: Hemingway in Spain and Cuba
“Drawing upon his extensive experience in Spain and Cuba, novelist and travel guide Tim Weed gives a vividly illustrated talk on author Ernest Hemingway’s life in the two countries he loved most, with particular reference to the influence of place and culture on Hemingway’s fiction. This talk will be of interest to writers, travelers, Hemingway readers, and anyone interested in learning more about BMAC’s upcoming ARTravel programs in Spain and Cuba. Admission is free.”
Young writers program in Prague and Southern Bohemia
July 16, 2015 § Leave a comment
Very much looking forward to joining a group of young American writers in just a few days as the guest novelist on this exciting international writing program. We’ll begin in Prague and then head down to southern Bohemia, where an historic castle will be the staging ground for field exercises, craft talks, hiking, stimulating conversation about books and literature, and miscellaneous fun.
Putney Student Travel is the same group that has taken me to Dublin and the small island of Inishbofin for the last two summers, and it’s a great experience. Travel and writing go so well together, and it’s always inspiring to work alongside young women and men who are passionate about writing and literature. I’ll post some pics on my FB author page . . .
Summer writing seminars at GrubStreet
May 12, 2015 § Leave a comment
Looking forward to teaching three intensive one-day seminars on critical aspects of the fiction writing craft this summer: descriptive writing, the novel opening, and point of view/psychic distance. I’m very much enjoying my association with GrubStreet, a Boston-based organization run by kind and wonderful people and frequented by many talented aspiring and established writers. If you’re within striking distance of downtown Boston, come join us!
Author interview: Inside Historical Fiction
April 21, 2015 § 2 Comments
It was a pleasure to be interviewed recently by the author M.K. Tod for her Inside Historical Fiction series. We had a nice talk about the ingredients that go into the making of great historical fiction, the research process, recent trends in the genre, and more. Here’s an excerpt:
MKT: Are historical novels inherently different from contemporary novels, and if so, in what ways?
TW: There’s a quote that I love from Andrew Miller, writing in The New York Times Book Review a few years ago, about the appeal of distance, and of “the strangeness such distance produces and of the lives lived recognizably in the midst of that strangeness.” He compared historical fiction to science fiction, pointing out that both genres require the writer to depict the only world he or she can possibly know—“the here and now”—in other terms.
To me, this notion captures much of what I love about historical fiction, both in the writing and in the reading: it’s at once a dream we have to enter and an oblique reflection of ourselves. In my experience, this kind of mind-altering immersion is harder to find in contemporary novels—if by “contemporary” we mean novels that are set in times and places very similar to the quotidian spheres in which we tend to live out our lives.
Read the full interview here.
Tim Weed 