Tim Westover's Blog

Some friends and family have asked for a compilation of Chloe’s best sayings and advice. In honor of her sixth birthday, I’ve put together that book finally, which you can download here:

Quotable Chloe (PDF, 76MB)

And if you’d like a printed copy with all these color pictures, you can order one here:

CreateSpace eStore

All proceeds go directly to her 529 plan for college!

Auraria has been out for about two years now (in its final form), and thousands of people have read it. The feedback has been great, and I’m humbled by your willingness to share some of your reading time with me.

I’ve got a new novel in the works. The publication details aren’t final yet, but in the meantime, I wanted to share Auraria as widely as possible, with as many readers as are willing to read it. So, Auraria is now free to download. I’ve created formats that are compatible with just about every e-reader. I’ve chosen a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which means that you are free to download, share, redistribute, re-mix, adapt, translate, and do whatever you want with this source material, both for personnel and commercial use.

Please enter your e-mail below to get to the download page. Or, if you’ve already read the novel and want to stay up-to-date on any future publications, please sign up with your e-mail here.

I don’t send out more than one e-mail per month, and I’ll never resell or share your email address with anyone else for any reason. You can unsubscribe any time.

 

Skip the e-mail; just let me download the book »

 

Auraria: A Novel by Tim Westover is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

You may download, share, redistribute, re-mix, adapt, translate, and do whatever you want with this source material, both for personnel and commercial use. All that I ask (but do not require) is that you let me know about any adaptations, keep my name as the author of the original work, and provide a way for any interested party to get back to the original work. A link to this page would be much appreciated.

Here’s my second annual accounting of all the books that I read in 2012. 76 in total. 49 were non-fiction, which surprised me — I would have thought there would be more novels in the mix. Best books I read for the first time in 2012: Cloud Atlas. A masterpiece. The Pale King is a [...]

Here’s the next installment of my annual tradition. A total of 69 books: 6 fiction and 63 non-fiction. Best books I read for the first time in 2013: A Short History of Nearly Everything, Last Letters from Hav, A Confederacy of Dunces Worst book I read in 2013: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Books Read in [...]

Here’s the next installment of my annual tradition. A total of 69 books: 6 fiction and 63 non-fiction.

Best books I read for the first time in 2013: A Short History of Nearly Everything, Last Letters from Hav, A Confederacy of Dunces

Worst book I read in 2013: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Books Read in 2013

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (December 2013)
A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities (December 2013)
Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia (December 2013)
Signs, Cures, and Witchery (December 2013)
Honey, Mud, and Maggots (December 2013)
Witches, Ghosts, and Signs (November 2013)
Ether Day (November 2013)
Old English Patent Medicines in America (November 2013)
Rabies (November 2013)
Appalachian Folklore (November 2013)
Bleed, Blister, and Purge (November 2013)
The Prince of Medicine (October 2013)
Encyclopedia of the Exquisite (October 2013)
Mystic Healers & Medicine Shows (October 2013)
The Name of the Rose (October 2013)
Southern Folk Medicine (October 2013)
Quack: Tales of Medical Fraud (October 2013)
Frontier Medicine (September 2013)
A Time of Gifts (September 2013)
Strange Medicine (September 2013)
The Big Short (September 2013)
Black America Series: Gwinnett County, Georgia (September 2013)
Vanishing Gwinnett II (September 2013)
Victorian Pharmacy (September 2013)
Vanishing Gwinnett (August 2013)
About Lawrenceville (August 2013)
Under the Glacier (August 2013)
The Cabinet of Medical Curiosities (August 2013)
Me Talk Pretty One Day (August 2013)
The War of the End of the World (August 2013)
How Carrots Won the Trojan War (July 2013)
Venice: A New History (July 2013)
The Island of the Colorblind (July 2013)
Dinner with Persephone (July 2013)
Backlands (July 2013)
Riddle of the Labirynth (June 2013)
Video Night in Katmandu (June 2013)
Upshot of Irrationality (June 2013)
Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls (June 2013)
Heads In Beds (May 2013)
How to Travel With a Salmon (May 2013)
Worst Case Scenario: Travel (May 2013)
Pillars of Hercules (May 2013)
Museum of Lost Wonder (May 2013)
Pausanias I (May 2013)
A War Like No Other (April 2013)
Babylon (April 2013)
Weird Life (March 2013)
The Ancient Guide to Modern Life (March 2013)
The Psychopath Test (March 2013)
Visions of Infinity (March 2013)
A Tramp Abroad (March 2013)
Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphs (March 2013)
A Confederacy of Dunces (March 2013)
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (March 2013)
Pagan Holiday (February 2013)
101 Zen Buddhist Stories (February 2013)
A History of the World in 100 Objects (February 2013)
The Great Influenza (February 2013)
Hojoki (February 2013)
Eothen (February 2013)
Last Letters from Hav (February 2013)
Mazes and Labyrinths (January 2013)
Sacred Sites Bible (January 2013)
Tao of Travel (January 2013)
Eaten By a Giant Clam (January 2013)
Travels with Herodotus (January 2013)
Wicked Bugs (January 2013)
A Short History of Nearly Everything (January 2013)

 

Here’s my second annual accounting of all the books that I read in 2012. 76 in total. I’ve bolded my particular favorites. Best books I read for the first time in 2012: without a doubt, Cloud Atlas. A masterpiece. The Pale King is a close second. 2k to 10k (December 2012) American Ghost (December 2012) [...]

“The Next Big Thing” is a little Q & A making the rounds among literary Southerners (and perhaps other circles too for all I know). Thanks to Beth Duke for tagging me and letting me share a little about my current work in progress (or “work that has progressed”). What is your working title of [...]

“The Next Big Thing” is a little Q & A making the rounds among literary Southerners (and perhaps other circles too for all I know). Thanks to Beth Duke for tagging me and letting me share a little about my current work in progress (or “work that has progressed”).

What is your working title of your book?

It’s called The Old Weird South, an anthology of new fiction about the eerie, supernatural, macabre, and spooky side of the American South.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

In January 2012, I had the idea to put out a call for short stories from writers near and far. I asked them to submit stories about the supernatural and the South, which is a subject on which I’ve spent years and years. I like editing, collecting, judging, arranging, scheming. And all of this seemed like a good break from the intense five-year project of reading for and writing Auraria, which I’d just wrapped up.

What genre does your book fall under?

There are a lot of genres in this little book. Ghost stories, folk tales, highly literary short stories. What they all share, though, is a Southern setting and the presence of something supernatural. The devil at the crossroads, ghosts haunting a bed & breakfast, Native America legends, immortal mountaineers.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Let’s leave that up to the individual authors. In my own vision, I saw at least two William H. Macy’s, an Andy Serkis, a Morgan Freeman, and a good plenty more.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

“Stretching from the Civil War to the present day, these twenty four new stories visit mysterious bingo parlors and meet devils at the crossroads; they see battles in Florida’s citrus orchards and explore haunted bed & breakfasts.” It’s two independent clauses, but technically only one sentence because of that noble semicolon.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Published by QW Publishers, LLC.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Submissions came in from January through March. I picked 22 out of 200 by April. Edited throughout the summer, worked with authors into the fall (and recruited two more contributions), got through layout and proofreading by November, and went on sale December 4th, 2012! Just about a year from idea to shelf.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

There’s a great tradition of multi-author anthologies in fantasy and Southern lit.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

My own hubris, I suppose. I learned a lot throughout the process, and so the many trials and tribulations were, in the end, rewarding.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

You only have to put up with my writing for two pages, then it’s on to the stories, which are very diverse. Some are humorous, some dark and deadly serious; some in dialect and some not; some as casual and some are dense and literary. Please visit the publisher’s website for two sample stories and more info.

“Ingredients: vegetarian snack. Warning: do not eat as a snack.” It’s like a Zen koan. I honestly don’t know what kind of food this is. I found it near the dried mushrooms at the Assi Plaza in Duluth, GA.

“Ingredients: vegetarian snack. Warning: do not eat as a snack.” It’s like a Zen koan.

I honestly don’t know what kind of food this is. I found it near the dried mushrooms at the Assi Plaza in Duluth, GA.