A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing: Stories

A high mountain lake in the Colorado Rockies is the point of departure for these stories of dark adventure, in which vividly drawn landscapes provide an immersive setting for narratives about fishing guides, amateur sportsmen, teenage misfits, scientists, mountaineers, and expatriates embark on disquieting journeys of self-discovery in far-flung places: the hazardous tidal waters of Nantucket, the granite quarries and ski slopes of New Hampshire, Venezuela's Orinoco basin, the ancient squares and alleyways of Rome and Granada, the summit of an Andean volcano, and the tension-filled streets of eastern Cuba. 

"Tim Weed's A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing is a fiction collection of the first order. I found myself parceling out the stories to make them last. These are stories that will live a long time both on the page and in your heart." --Joseph Monninger, author of The World as We Know It

"Each story is a jewel, cracking open what matters most: love, family, and our big beautiful planet." --Ann Hood, author of The Book That Matters Most

"In his first short story collection, novelist Tim Weed shows his stunningly impressive range--transporting readers from the heights of the Andes and the depths of the Amazon to the backstreets of Rome and Granada. Many of Weed's stories have a hint of the mysterious, even the supernatural, but they are all grounded in sharply-rendered material worlds so fresh one feels one might step directly into the literary photographs he has created and stroll around for a while. A top-notch debut, not to be missed." Jacob Appel, author of Einstein's Beach House
 
Classic in feel and fresh in approach, the stories in A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER AND FLY FISHING speak to the inextricability of exterior and interior experience; to the powerful magnetism of solitude versus friendship, brotherhood, and love; and to the urgent need for a more direct engagement with the planet that sustains us.
 
A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER AND FLY FISHING has been shortlisted for the New Rivers Press Many Voices Project, the Autumn House Press Fiction Prize, and the Lewis-Clark Press Discovery Award. "The Afternoon Client" won the 2013 Writer's Digest Popular Fiction Awards, and "Tower Eight" was the Grand Prize winner for Outrider Press's The Mountain anthology. Other stories have been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net anthologies and shortlisted for the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards, the Lightship International Literature Prize, the Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers, the Rick DeMarinis Short Fiction Award, the Alligator Juniper Award for Short Fiction, and the Richard Yates Short Story Awards.

"A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing is more than a collection of adventure stories. It is a significant and moving collection of ideas, snapshots, and visions that leave a lasting impression . . . Never predictable, this collection is a must for travelers, adventure seekers, and anyone who cares to examine the depth of [Weed's] varied and flawed characters." Ron Samul, We Are the Curriculum

Tim's short fiction collection, A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing, made the 2018 Eric Hoffer Book Award Grand Prize Shortlist and was a finalist for the 2017 International Book Awards in the short fiction category. His first novel, Will Poole's Island, was named to Bank Street College of Education's list of the Best Books of the Year. Tim teaches creative writing at GrubStreet in Boston and in the Newport MFA program at Salve Regina College.