About this Event
Join us on Monday, June 29th as we host Tim W**d in conversation Jenna Blum to discuss his new novel, The Gatepost! Signed copies of the book will be available for purchase.
About the book:
“A compellingly trippy journey.” ―Kirkus Reviews
From the author of The Afterlife Project: One woman’s quest to find her father pushes her beyond the boundaries of space, time, and the human mind.
Esme Weatherhead was twelve years old when her father, an amateur scientist and the author of a bestselling book on Mesoamerican shamanism, walked into the forest on their rural Vermont property and never came back. Twenty years later, she quit her job in San Francisco, got divorced, and moved back home with the goal of writing a book about her father’s life and sudden vanishing.
In the course of her research, Esme uncovers an old field journal that describes a cave on the property she hadn’t known about, experiments involving high doses of psilocybin mushrooms, and a series of strangely vivid hallucinations. After searching unsuccessfully for the cave, she hires Lucas St. Pierre, a local geologist, to help her find it.
Now, as they work to unravel the mystery of her father’s disappearance, Esme and Lucas must confront hidden forces that will test their sanity and put their safety at risk, ultimately leading to new insights about love, death, and the enduring resilience of life on Earth.
Perfect for fans of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi, Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility, and Richard Powers’s Bewilderment, Tim W**d’s The Gatepost blends modern science and ancient cosmology to take readers on a journey offering hallucinatory glimpses into worlds beyond our own.
About the author:
Tim W**d is the author of four books of fiction, most recently the novel . His previous novel, , was named a best book of 2025 by Library Journal and the Toronto Star. His work has won multiple Writer’s Digest Annual Fiction Awards and has been shortlisted for the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award, the Eric Hoffer Book Award, the Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction, the Prism Prize for Climate Literature, the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Award, the New Rivers Many Voices Project, and many others. His nonfiction has appeared in Writers Digest, Literary Hub, The Revelator, The Millions, The Writer’s Chronicle, Talking Points Memo, The Good Men Project, and elsewhere.
Tim serves on the core faculty of the Newport MFA in Creative Writing and is the co-founder of the Cuba Writers Program. A former featured expert for National Geographic Expeditions and many other programs abroad, he holds a BA in Spanish from Middlebury College, a master’s in international affairs from the University of California, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College.
About the moderator:
Jenna Blum is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of novels THOSE WHO SAVE US, THE STORMCHASERS, and THE LOST FAMILY; novella “The Lucky One” in anthology GRAND CENTRAL; memoir WOODROW ON THE BENCH; audio course “The Author At Work: The Art of Writing Fiction”; and WWII audio drama THE KEY OF LOVE, available on every major podcast streaming platform. Jenna is one of Oprah’s Top Thirty Women Writers, with her work published in over 20 countries, and cofounder/CEO of online author interview platform A Mighty Blaze. Jenna’s first novel, THOSE WHO SAVE US, won the Ribalow Prize, awarded by Hadassah Magazine and adjudged by Elie Wiesel, and was a Borders pick and the #1 bestselling novel in Holland. THE STORMCHASERS was a Boston Globe bestseller, a Target Emerging Authors pick, featured in Elle Magazine, and a bestseller in France and Holland; THE LOST FAMILY, also a bestseller, was an Indiebound pick and garnered starred reviews from all four major trades: Booklist, Publishers’ Weekly, Kirkus, and Library Journal. Jenna’s bestselling memoir WOODROW ON THE BENCH was a Midwestern Booksellers’ pick and is now available in paperback. Jenna's latest novel, psychological thriller M**der YOUR DARLINGS, is available from Harper Collins 01/13/26.
In addition to being a career author, Jenna is a professional public speaker, traveling nationally and internationally to talk about her books and work; a veteran teacher, having taught Creative Writing and novel workshops for Boston University, Grub Street Writers, and other institutions for 25+ years; an editor for Reedsy; and on-air host for A Mighty Blaze.
Jenna is based in Boston with her black Lab, Henry Higgins. For more information about Jenna and her adventures, please visit her website and follow her on Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, and Substack.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Symposium Books, 240 Westminster Street, Providence, United States
USD 0.00 to USD 23.17
