 He currently writes a column on the art of writing, "On Prose", which appears in the Book Pages every other month of "The Valley News".His autobiographical short story, "The Bass, the River, and Sheila Mant," telling the story of a fourteen-year-old boy who must choose between the girl of his dreams and the fish of his dreams, has been anthologized over twenty times, and appears in many textbooks for middle school, high school, and college English.Wetherell's awards include two NEA Creative Writing Fellowships, three O'Henry Awards for short stories, the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, the National Magazine Award, the Arnold Gingrich Fly-Fishing Heritage Award, The "Best Short Story" of 1993 award from the Catholic Press Association, the Michigan Literary Fiction Award, the National Magazine Award, and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year Award in 1990.