Tim Weed's Blog, page 6

New short fiction up at Pangyrus

‘Today a flock of crows has gathered. Half a dozen of the birds with their glossy blue-black feathers, come to peck at beetles he supposes, or some other small insect involved in the decomposition of dead matter. He strides up to the crows, brandishing his cane.

“Bugger off, now! This is a burial site, not a feeding place for scavengers!”

The crows tilt their heads to stare up at him. Their obsidian eyes are insolent, almost bored-looking, by the sight of the heavy filigreed cane-head whistling through the air above them.

“Very well, then. But don’t say I didn’t give you fair warning.”

He takes careful aim and swings. The crows flap off, but one wheels, cawing and swooping belligerently back down at him. He aims the cane and swings again, and this time he feels the jolt of an actual connection. The crow lets out a low grunt as it flips to the ground, one black wing jutting out from its broken body as it struggles to get up from the hemlock needles.

He brings the cane-head down on the crow’s skull; it collapses with an audible crunch, like a boiled egg. He draws the blade and skewers the creature’s broken body, walking it up into the forest where he digs a little trench in the sodden ground, kicks some leaves over it, and wipes the blade clean.

That’s more like it now, he says to himself, sheathing the blade as he walks down toward the house. You just have to confront them one by one.“

Read the whole story here. Listen to a brief audio piece about the historical figure who inspired the story here.

New three-part class offered at The Skills: Sentence-Level Music

Next up, new writing craft series at The Skills. I’m pretty excited about this: The Skills is an on-line coaching/learning platform somewhat similar to MasterClass; they started out mostly in sports and have some pretty well-known instructors involved, including Michael Phelps, Maria Sharapova, and Shaun White. The classes or “group lessons” are on-line and open to the public, wherever you happen to be on the planet; you can either attend live or watch a recording on your own time. My first offering is a three-part series called “Sentence Level Music,” beginning on September 17:

This is a great investment for working writers looking to take your prose up to the next level, anyone wanting to jumpstart or return to a practice of creative writing, and really anyone interested in refining your skills in high-impact writing. Give the first session a try: I promise you’ll be glad you did!

For anyone interested, here are more detailed descriptions for each group lesson:

Sentence-Level Music I: The Core Qualities of Great Sentences (September 17, 10am PST)

Most writers produce good sentences, but few produce consistently great ones. Members of this club tend to be authors of some notoriety; the purpose of this three-part virtual lesson is to nudge ourselves a bit closer to that level. In Part I we’ll break down a selection of great sentences in an attempt to discover what makes them effective. We’ll look at such topics as the importance of economy, specificity, and musicality, the uses of parallelism, and repetition for rhythmic emphasis. Brief writing exercises will help integrate our observations in the interest of endowing our own sentences with greater clarity, vividness, substance, and impact.

Sentence-Level Music II: Sentence-Level Suspense & Cumulative Syntax (September 24, 10am PST):

In Part II of this three-part virtual lesson intended to increase your skill in sentence-level prose, we’ll begin with the surprisingly useful concept of the proposition as the basic building block of sentences. From there we’ll turn to building our skills in establishing sentence-level suspense, serial constructions, and the broadly underestimated power of cumulative syntax to capture the distilled meaning that is an essential characteristic of gripping prose. Brief writing exercises will help integrate our observations in the interest of harnessing the capabilities of the sentence to enrich and expand the range and musicality of our own writing.

Sentence-Level Music III: Making Sentences that Sing (October 1, 10AM PST)

Language is the paint; sentences are the brush strokes. The best painters are the ones who’ve become so good with the brush that they paint without thinking and in a style that can be none but their own. In the third installment of this three-part virtual lesson we’ll go beyond core principles to explore the sublime potentialities of the sentence. We’ll look at the ways in which great sentences can “sing the meaning of themselves,” and explore methods for varying sentence length to create mesmerizing rhythms and evoke specific emotions. A final writing exercise will help to integrate what we’ve learned across all three lessons, demonstrating a new facility with the art and music of sentence-writing.

Read more and/or sign up for a session here. And check out the other topics offered at The Skills; I’m thinking of taking a tennis lesson myself. I definitely need one!

Announcing new travel programs

In the works are several new small-group trips abroad:

November 30 – December 7, 2022: Informal “Family & Friends” trip to Cuba (Havana, Cienfuegos, Playa Larga – contact by email for more info)

January 7 – 15, 2023: Newport MFA Writing Workshop in Cuba (Havana & Playa Larga: open to non-MFA writers on a first-come, first served basis)

April 10 – 17, 2023: Art & Cuisine of Oaxaca, Mexico (further details will be posted here when they’re available)

If you’re interested in learning more about any of these travel programs, just shoot me an email or use the contact page .

If none of these work with your schedule but this kind of trip IS of interest and you don’t want to wait another year (more or less) for one of these update emails to hit your inbox, please feel free bookmark the frequently updated “Upcoming” page.

To explore ideas about creating custom trips for small groups of family, friends, educational institutions, etc, again, just reply to this email or send me a note through the “Contact” page.

Three stories short-listed for the Tobias Wolff Award in Fiction

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! 

New stories short-listed for the Tobias Wolff Award in Fiction

Received a nice bit of good news today: no fewer than three of the stories in my collection-in-progress (working title: Tourists at 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! 

Let the educational travel resume . . .

Plotting and planning . . .

Elated to be heading to Oaxaca, Mexico, from May 3 – 10. It’s research for a new novel, and for a museum trip focused on art, cuisine, and sacred medicine scheduled for April 2023 (open to anyone!). Other upcoming programs include a Newport MFA writing residency in Havana in January, 2023 (open to writers outside the Newport MFA community!), and several potential small-group cultural trips to Havana in 2023. If you’re interested in any of this, or in setting up a custom trip somewhere, please don’t hesitate to send me a note. And/or bookmark this page for dates and descriptions as they come in!

The best historical novels of Early Colonial New England

Shepherd Books is an interesting new independent book site that is trying to compete with corporate giant Goodreads. They found out about Will Poole’s Island and asked me to come up with a list of the five best historical novels of Early Colonial New England. It was a fun exercise, and while I’m sure not everyone will agree with my selections, here they are for your reading pleasure: https://shepherd.com/best-books/early-colonial-new-england

By the way, did you know that Will Poole’s Island is now available on Audible and other platforms, narrated by yours truly? Click the cover image below and add it to your audio library!

New longlists/shortlists

A cynic might say something like “always the bridesmaid, never the bride,” but I’ve never been a cynic and I’m pleased to report these recent honors:

Semi-Finalist, 2021 Leapfrog Press Global Fiction Prize, for a novel, THE HAVANA STANDARD

Finalist, 2021 Southern Humanities Review Editors Chapbook Prize, for a novelette, AMONG THE MONOLITHS

Honorable Mention, 2021 Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition (Mainstream/Literary), for a short story, VIRGIN OF THE APOCALYPSE

Honorable Mention, 2021 Cisco Writing Club, Annual Summer Writing Contest (Short Stories), for a short story, SKIN MONKEYS

None of these works has been published yet. Stay tuned!

Encouraging Signals for Some New Unpublished Fiction

A pessimist might say something like “always the bridesmaid, never the bride,” but I’ve never been a pessimist, and it gives me great pleasure to report these recent honors:

Semi-Finalist, 2021 Leapfrog Press Global Fiction Prize, for a novel, THE HAVANA STANDARD

Finalist, 2021 Southern Humanities Review Editors Chapbook Prize, for a novellette, AMONG THE MONOLITHS

Honorable Mention, 2021 Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition (Mainstream/Literary), for a short story, VIRGIN OF THE APOCALYPSE

Honorable Mention, 2021 Cisco Writing Club, Annual Summer Writing Contest (Short Stories), for a short story, SKIN MONKEYS

None of these works has been published yet. My obvious hope is they will be, as a new novel and, for the shorter work, in publications that I will note here and then in the form of a new short fiction collection. Stay tuned!

New short fiction at Pangyrus

Great to see my new short story, “The Tawny-Green Steppe,” up at the beautifully edited and produced Pangyrus literary magazine. The story, a reimagining of Charles Darwin’s adventures in Tierra del Fuego and the Argentine pampas, was shortlisted for the 2021 Fish International Short Story Prize.

My focus over these last few years has been on novels, so it’s wonderful to be back in the short fiction game. Link to full story here.