Tim Weed's Blog

So pleased to see that this book continues to have momentum out in the world!

Very much appreciate this brilliantly written new book review from All Our Yesterdays, an innovative site keeping track of the recent and not-so-recent history of climate landmarks, climate action, and the sordid and continuing history of denialism on this planet. You can access the entire review here.

Here’s a quick excerpt:

“The lush narration within The Afterlife Project conjures smells, sounds, textures, and visuals of a planet that should be, of soil that we should long to kneel upon, of animals that deserve to live unfettered by the whims of humans. (For all of our self aggrandizing about our technological and industrial accomplishments, it remains to be seen how increasing amounts of cement and glass can compare to the luxury of untouched nature.) If you’re a city kid, I challenge you to read this book and not have a mustard seed of desire for nature sprout within your hurried heart.”

Also loved participating in the 7AM Novelist‘s roundtable, “Can Climate Fiction Move the Needle,” moderated by talented novelist and literary good citizen Michelle Hoover, which you can listen to in full here.

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be leading a new writers’ workshop and craft masterclass in Oaxaca, November 14-21, 2026! If you’re writing in any genre, consider giving yourself the gift of a week-long generative workshop and craft masterclass in this very spectacular corner of the world.

In addition to the writing focus we’ll be doing plenty off-the-beaten track exploration of the area’s amazing artistic, archaeological, natural, and gustatory riches, and we’ll have parallel activities during the daily writing workshop for non-writer friends and significant others, such as hands-on cooking and/or Spanish classes.

The program is designed to accommodate writers and aspiring writers in any genre or stage of development. If you’re interested, please refer to this detailed description, which also includes a simple application form. And feel free to send me a note if you have questions.

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!

Floored and profoundly honored to see that THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT is a Toronto Star favorite fiction book for 2025!

“Good writing and a timely message about nature and humanity’s resilience make this novel stand out in what has become a crowded field of end-of-the-world lit.” — The Toronto Star

Thank you, Canada! Here’s hoping we can become better neighbors in 2026. See the full list here.

Stunned, thrilled, and obviously over-the-moon happy to learn that The Afterlife Project has been selected by Library Journal as one of their Best Books of 2025! This comes as a complete surprise, but it’s a true honor and I’m so pleased that it’s going to help this novel reach a larger readership.

Earlier in the year Library Journal gave the book a starred review, which you can read in full here.

It’s an honor to be in such excellent company as one of Tam Sparks (of Books, Bones & Buffy fame) Favorite Science Fiction books of 2025!

“A thrilling and immersive adventure story, The Afterlife Project combines complex, thoughtful themes with relatable characters and bittersweet emotion . . . Tim Weed’s latest novel is a gripping and emotional time travel/post apocalyptic adventure with a fair amount of science backing everything up. It’s also full of themes like found family and even a bit of romance, but mostly it’s an ode to our planet’s natural wonder and beauty, as well as a cautionary tale about humanity’s downfall. Weed masterfully tells his story in two timelines with a great deal of distance between them—more than 10,000 years!—and it’s surprisingly effective. . . Please do yourself a favor and consider reading The Afterlife Project, which deserves every bit of praise it’s received and is one of the best books I’ve read so far this year.”

See the whole list here.

Peru: Ancient Cultures, Natural Wonders. April 8-19, 2026. As some of you may know, I have a long history with Peru (scroll down for photos from some of my travel there in the early aughts) and have been planning a friends’ trip back to the country in collaboration with my friend and fellow Middlebury graduate, distinguished documentary filmmaker Amy Bucher.  It’s going to be an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience! We’ll be running the trip in collaboration with the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC): here’s a link with all the details. The deposit date is coming right up on November 7, 2025. There are still a few openings, but don’t wait too long to register. We very much hope you can join us!

Oaxaca Writers’ Workshop. November 14-21, 2026. I can’t wait to return to the enchanting valley of Oaxaca! This writing workshop will feature plenty off-the-beaten track exploration of the area’s amazing artistic, archaeological, natural, and gustatory riches, and we’ll have parallel activities during the daily writing workshop for non-writer friends and significant others, such as hands-on cooking and/or Spanish classes. Stay tuned for more on this, and if you’re already interested, please send me a note and I’ll put you on the list to receive further details as they come out.

Inca Stonework

Scroll down to see some photos from my early travels to Peru, when I became especially fascinated by the spectacular ways the Inca had of working with sculpted stone. It’s really quite amazing and speaks of a relationship between nature, spirituality, and architecture that I don’t think we’ve come close to fully appreciating in our own culture. We’ll be exploring these Sacred Valley sites and many more in April 2026!

This 59 minute interview with the delightful Addie Thompson of Where the Climate Things Are was so much fun! We talk about, among other things:

Growing up between Vermont and Denver and discovering a love of winter and skiing

How fly fishing — in various locations throughout the US, including Addie’s favorite, Kennebago Lake — became a lifelong practice

Trip leading, group dynamics, and what time in the wilderness reveals about human connection

Why geological time, mass extinctions, and perspective can help with climate anxiety

The role of fiction in shifting climate paradigms and building new climate mythologies

Click here to watch the whole interview

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“WESTMINSTER — Local author Tim Weed’s fascinating new book, “The Afterlife Project” is a work of speculative fiction that features a post-apocalyptic sea voyage on a vintage sailing yacht, lovers separated by 10,000 years of time, and pervasive dangers both physical and psychological.

The novel bounces between two time periods — one 40 years in the future, when the human species faces imminent extinction because of climate disaster and infertility, and another 10 millenniums ahead, when the Earth, having “recovered” from the destructive forces of human civilization and the total collapse of its infrastructures, is once again teeming with abundant wildlife and natural beauty.

So it was with some irony that, when I drove to within a mile of Weed’s home in the rolling hills north of Putney to interview him before his appearance this Friday at the Brattleboro Literary Festival, I was stopped dead in my tracks by power lines that had fallen across the dirt road just minutes before, apparently knocked down by a heavy gust of wind.

“Maybe nature is trying to tell you something,” Weed laughed when I later contacted him by phone. In any event, he graciously agreed to reschedule the interview for the next day, and the following is a record of our conversation.” Read the rest here.

Another in a series of highly enjoyable radio and podcast appearances in the aftermath of the publication of The Afterlife Project!

This thirty minute conversation with fellow novelist DelSheree Gladden on KSJE radio in Farmington, New Mexico will be especially interesting to writers, I think. Topics include climate fiction, the depth and complexity of fictional characters, the creative and research origins of The Afterlife Project, the bracing challenge of writing fiction that comes alive on the page while also getting at a deeper truth, balancing scientific research with story elements, Hemingway’s iceberg theory of fiction, revision as re-inhabiting stories like a vivid dream, the challenges and joys of teaching fiction, the power of literature, and the impact of stories on human affairs, the value of experiencing dark alternative futures, the enduring appeal of novels, and more. Listen here.