PUTNEY, Vt. – Novelist Tim Weed will celebrate the release of his highly anticipated new novel “The Afterlife Project” with a publication launch party and reading on Tuesday, June 3, from 6-8 p.m., at Next Stage Arts, 15 Kimball Hill, Putney, Vt.
Described by bestselling author Peter Heller as “a brave and brilliant imagining of Earth” in a post-human future, “The Afterlife Project” has already garnered national recognition as a finalist for the 2023 Prism Prize for Climate Literature. This genre-defying novel blends literary fiction, climate science, and speculative imagination in a haunting narrative that spans millennia.
Set in a not-so-distant 2068 and 10,000 years into the future, the novel follows microbiologist Nicholas Hindman, the first human to awaken from cryogenic suspension in an uninhabited Earth. As he searches for any sign of humanity, those he left behind face their own perilous journey across a collapsing world. Weed masterfully weaves themes of isolation, environmental reckoning, and survival with breathtaking prose that has drawn comparisons to Andy Weir, Emily St. John Mandel, and Cormac McCarthy.
The June 3 event will include a live reading by the author, refreshments, book signings, and the opportunity to meet one of Vermont’s most celebrated literary voices. Copies of “The Afterlife Project” will be available for purchase.
Weed is the award-winning author of “Will Poole’s Island” and “A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing,” a two-time winner of the Writer’s Digest Fiction Awards, and a member of the Vermont Humanities Council Speakers’ Bureau. He teaches in the Newport Master of Fine Arts in creative writing, and codirects the Cuba Writers Program. With a global background that includes guiding National Geographic expeditions and developing educational programs across continents, Weed brings a unique and deeply informed perspective to his fiction.
Don’t miss this extraordinary event – a celebration of storytelling, resilience, and the future of our planet through the lens of a novel already being hailed as a classic in the making.