Tim Weed's Blog, page 11

“Tower Eight” nominated for a Pushcart

Pleased and very honored to report that Green Writers Press has nominated “Tower Eight” for the 2018 Pushcart Prize!  “Tower Eight” is the story of a pair of teenage misfits who do LSD and put themselves into various dangerous situations in rural New Hampshire, establishing a tight friendship as they hurtle toward a tragic end. (Grand Prize Winner, The Mountain (anthology), Outrider Press. Originally published in Gulf Coast.)[image error]

It’s the second story in A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing, published in hardcover in April, 2017, and coming out in paperback in April 2018. (An excellent stocking stuffer, by the way. Just sayin’.)

To go or not to go? Traveling to Cuba and the situation on the ground

[image error]I’ve fielded quite a few questions in recent months about the advisability of travel to Cuba, given the stories that have been in the news over the last several months: the hurricane, the “sonic attacks,” and the new restrictions put out by the Trump administration.

Is it no longer possible/advisable/comfortable for Americans to travel to Cuba? Fresh from a wonderful contemporary Cuban art trip with my friend the painter Eric Aho and a group of ten intrepid travel companions, I’m finally in a position to report.

[image error]We had no problems with U.S. airport authorities, though we were asked for “paperwork” demonstrating that we were part of an educational group that was in compliance with the new regulations. I showed them our working itinerary, which was all they needed to see. Otherwise there were no barriers on the US side. For a summary of the new regulations, click here.

The flights down and back were nearly empty, a rare experience these days. You could stretch out on the seats, and there was plenty of room in the overheads. It made for an unusually easy and pleasant flight, though one couldn’t help feeling a little regretful on behalf of the many Cuban entrepreneurs who’d staked their futures on the openings for independent travelers under Obama—which have proved all too fleeting, from their perspective, under his successor.

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Construction cranes for two grand new hotels on the Prado are a sign that Cubans are still betting their future on tourism, despite Trump

In Havana, little has changed. Arriving in the city is always exhilarating—that feeling of being launched back in time, or at least to a place like nowhere else in the world. There is little visible damage left over from Hurricane Irma—and even less evidence of any effect of the so-called “sonic attacks” on diplomatic workers that have been reported in Havana (and more recently in Uzbekistan). The precise nature of these highly isolated incidents is unknown, what might have caused them, or even whether they were indeed attacks. Many Cubans I’ve spoken to are skeptical.

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These Cubans didn’t seem bothered by news of “sonic attacks”

In any case, there’s little evidence of nefarious events on the streets of Havana, where life goes on as normal. Uniformed schoolkids on the Prado playing soccer. Musicians and roller-bladers and lovers on the marble benches. The usual fishermen on the Malecón. Old cars in the street, families riding on motorcycles with sidecars, jineteros pushing cigars. People going about the business of daily life.

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The Malecón shows little sign of the flooding that occurred with Hurricane Irma

The main difference I could see is that there are so many fewer Americans on the streets than a year or even six months ago. Entrepreneurs have had to adjust their expectations, but there are still plenty of international tourists, so the situation isn’t as desperate as you might think. It’s a palpable slowdown, but everything hasn’t come grinding to a halt. Perhaps the Cubans don’t need us as much as we like to imagine.

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If you look very closely, you can see the ballet dancers behind some of the open windows

One day I got a little stomach bug and spent the day writing, going for short walks, and lounging around in my third-floor hotel room, which had a view into a dance school; I could peer through the breeze-ruffed curtains and watch the young dancers practice all day, reminding me again why I keep coming back to Cuba: the inspiration of being surrounded by people who take pride in their work – whether they are dancers, musicians, painters, mechanics, taxi drivers, fishermen or street sweepers. People who as a result of hard and disciplined daily practice are good at what they do, and find joy in that and in the textures of daily life. People of great, unflappable dignity who remain cheerful and friendly despite obstacles and hardships that are impossible to conceive for those of us that didn’t live them.

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Cuba’s natural areas have weathered countless hurricanes

In this regard as in many others, little has changed in Cuba. It’s still an architectural time capsule, a cultural and natural environment of astounding richness and beauty. It’s still as fun, interesting, and inspiring as ever for the traveler, whether you’re returning or visiting for the first time.

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A trip to Cuba at this moment in history is an act of resistance against those who would impinge on our freedom to travel, and in the process damage the fortunes of the same free-market pioneers the new policies claim to support. More importantly, it is a chance increase the bonds of friendship between ourselves and our brothers and sisters on this special island.

Now is as great a time as ever to travel to Cuba. Read more about the options for doing that here.

 

 

Back to Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia

[image error]It’s been a few years, and I’m thrilled to be returning to one of my favorite regions on the planet with National Geographic Expeditions’ Exploring Patagonia program. This season I’m slated to accompany two trips: one in November, 2017 and a second in January, 2018. We’ll be cruising through Tierra del Fuego in a small, expertly crewed, Chilean-owned ship, the M.V. Stella Australis. We’ll embark from Ushuaia, the world’s southernmost city, round Cape Horn, and make our way up through the Magdalena Passage and the Agostini Sound, taking advantage of daily Zodiac landings to explore Hornos Island, Wulaia Bay, glaciers, and penguin colonies. Fantastic!

[image error]The Stella Australis will then drop us off in Punta Arenas, Chile, and we’ll head up to the stunning wilderness of Torres del Paine, where we’ll have daily opportunities to wander, both on foot and horseback. We can expect to see guanaco, rhea, Andean condor, many other bird species, and possibly even a puma or two. But it’s the vastness and sublime beauty of these wilderness landscapes that is the true highlight here. This part of the world is one of the least densely populated on earth, and it’s never short of inspiring!

[image error]I’m excited to be leading the educational aspects of the program in my role as National Geographic’s “featured expert.” Other than informal group interactions the main element of this task is to give a series of illustrated talks: an intro to the history and geography of the region; Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle; American artist and adventurer Rockwell Kent; Ivon Chounard, Douglas Tomkins and “los Fun Hogs.”

[image error]I’ll also be giving a brand new talk that I’m thrilled to debut in Patagonia, in which I’ll attempt to make sense of the links between travel, fiction, place-based writing, all in the context of this strange hybrid career of mine.

If you’re signed up for either of these trips, I look forward to traveling with you. If not, stay tuned: there are likely to be similar opportunities in the future!

A conversation about writing with James Scott of TK Podcast

[image error]Really enjoyed my conversation with James Scott on the latest episode of his terrific series of literary conversations known as the TK Podcast. James is a bestselling novelist (The Kept) and an excellent interviewer, with a real knack for asking questions about writing and life that lead to interesting places.

We talked about travel, the writing life, the binary nature of solitude, National Geographic, short fiction, how to sequence stories in a short fiction collection, the Cuba Writers Program, Ingmar Bergman, drug writing, Green Writers Press, Denis Johnson, The Grateful Dead, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Paul Bowles, and much, much more. Highly recommended if you’re a writer and/or a fan of literary podcasts! Here’s the link.

 

 

 

New Hampshire Public Radio interview

[image error]What a pleasure to travel up to Concord recently for an interview with NHPR’s All Things Considered host Peter Biello about nature, fiction, Rome, teaching, The Grateful Dead, and A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing. Peter is a writer himself, in addition to being a very fine interviewer and radio personality, and we had a lot to talk about.

Click here to listen to a podcast of the seven and a half minute interview. I think you’ll enjoy it!

Illustrated Talk on the Literary and Artistic History of Nantucket Island

[image error]Very much looking forward to this talk, which I’ll be giving at 7:30PM on July 26, at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center in Brattleboro, Vermont, in collaboration with talented painter Julia Jensen! If you’re in southern Vermont, come out to hear a novelist and an artist discuss the rich historic, literary, and artistic legacy of this very special island. Here’s a link to the event. Drinks and snacks too!

The talk is in anticipation for the Museum’s sponsored trip to the island coming up October 26-29, 2017, which Julia and I will be co-leading.

Profile out in old hometown newspaper

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:

[image error]“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

[image error]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.

[image error]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.

 

New short fiction out in Blueline

[image error]Pleased to see my short story, “The Knife,” out in the lovely new edition of Blueline, a print-only literary magazine dedicated to the “spirit of the Adirondacks.” This is a story that’s been in the works for a long time, involving a young man from the city who moves to rural Vermont to work for an unorthodox businessman who teaches him to hunt, with troubling results.

The story does not appear in A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing, so for now at least, the only way to read it is to order your own copy of Blueline (issue 38).

 

 

New Cuba/writing essay up at Cleaver

[image error]“The blackout was a revelation. It happened at around eight PM, in Trinidad, Cuba, on one of those moonless tropical nights that fall so suddenly you barely notice the dusk. This was several years ago—before the loosening of travel regulations that occurred under President Obama—and the number of American tourists remained small . . . At the time of the occurrence described in this essay, I was traveling to the country with cultural tourism groups at least half a dozen times a year.”

Click here to read the full essay.