Three top fiction reads of 2023
November 1, 2023 § Leave a comment
I put together a list of three of the books I most enjoyed reading this year for this cool literary organization called Shepherd, which has been conceived as a competitor to Goodreads. Some time ago I compiled my list of the best historical novels of early colonial New England; this year they asked me to compile my three top fiction reads.
I think it’s important for writers and readers to support organizations that are trying to get the word out about good books. For one thing, it’s a way to circumvent the powerful media channels dominated by conglomerate publishing; instead of the books they say we should be reading, why not listen to each other? Word of mouth, not well-funded marketing campaigns, after all, is a much more reliable way to find good books.
Of course anyone who loves to read is going to be relying to a major extent on the conglomerates; it’s just baked into the system. I try to buy books from small and independent presses whenever possible, but many of my favorites were put out by the Big 5 corporate imprints. And while it’s true that Goodreads is owned by the Amazon corporate empire, Goodreads and Amazon offer some of the best (and often the only) ways for relatively unknown writers to make their books discoverable to the world at large. This is why I’m pretty assiduous about rating and briefly reviewing the books I’ve read and enjoyed on these sites—and if you care about books and authors, you should too!
Still, Shepherd is a refreshing upstart, and I love what they’re doing for books and authors, so I tend to respond when they approach me to make this kind of list. Enjoy!
Tim Weed’s 3 favorite reads of 2023
The best historical novels of early colonial New England
New story out with Fairlight Shorts
October 19, 2023 § Leave a comment
Happy to announce that my new fiction, “Under the Highway,” is now out with Fairlight Shorts, a branch of Fairlight Books. This story is part of my collection-in-progress, working title Tickets to the Reckoning, and was also awarded a prize in the 2023 Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition.
For those of you that knew me growing up, please know that this is fiction, and any resemblance to actual living people isn’t intended and shouldn’t be inferred. I hope you enjoy it!
Three stories short-listed for the Tobias Wolff Award in Fiction
May 25, 2022 § 2 Comments
Received a nice bit of good news today: three of the stories in my collection-in-progress (working title: Tickets to the Reckoning) were chosen as finalists in the Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction (judged blind, sponsored by Bellingham Review). This is the first time multiple stories of mine have had that distinction in any contest, and this is a prestigious one. I’ll take it as a good omen!
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!
Profile out in old hometown newspaper
July 1, 2017 § Leave a comment
Pleased to see this new profile in The Keene Sentinel, the newspaper of record for the town where I attended high school and spent much of my adolescence. Very grateful to the Sentinel’s reporter, Xander Landen, for his interest in the collection and for his admirable insistence on getting all the facts right. Among other things, Xander does an excellent job of laying out the local context for some of the stories in A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing. Here’s the on-line version:
“From his Books to his Business, Vermont Writer Will Take You on a Journey.” The Keene Sentinel.
The Boston Globe reviews A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER & FLY FISHING
June 19, 2017 § Leave a comment
Very pleased about this one, obviously. In her review for The Boston Globe, Nina McLaughlin zeroes in on the collection’s sense of place: “ . . . each story deposits one definitively into a geography, of mind and map.” Read the full review here. (It’s part of a literary round-up, so you have to scroll down a bit.) Read key excerpts from all reviews to date here.
Order at IndieBound, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble. A limited number of signed, first edition hardcovers are available from the fabulous Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont, or you can request it from your own favorite local bookstore! (ISBN# 978-0997452877)
If you’re in the Boston area, I’ll be reading and discussing the book in tandem with my GrubStreet colleague Crystal King (Feast of Sorrow) at Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, 7pm the evening of June 29. More info here.
Collection is a finalist for the International Book Awards
May 23, 2017 § Leave a comment
Honored and very pleased to report that A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing has been chosen as a finalist in the 2017 International Book Awards (Short Story category).
It occurs to me to mention that for a certain kind of person, this collection would make an excellent Father’s Day gift! You can order the beautiful hardcover first edition at IndieBound, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble — or request it from your favorite local bookstore! (ISBN# 978-0997452877). Read all the latest reviews, and check the upcoming events page for a reading or signing near you!
New interview up at Fiction Writers Review
May 8, 2017 § Leave a comment
Really enjoyed this wide-ranging conversation with the perceptive Art Hutchinson at Fiction Writers Review. We discussed, among other things, extreme sports, the supernatural, foreign and historical settings, pushing the boundaries of conscious perception, and why the inner landscape is something fiction can do better than any other art. Read the whole interview here!
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!
Tim Weed 