January 31, 2008

Press Release

Will Weaver is an award-winning author who writes for adults and young adults.  The 2006 movie Sweet Land, starring Ned Beatty, was based on his story *Gravestone Made of Wheat*.  His novels for young adults, including the Striking Out and Memory Boy, are read in schools across the country, and he travels widely with his books and writing.Defect is a finalist for the 2008 MN Book Award.

With his forthcoming Motor Novels series (Farrar, Straus & Giroux Publishers), Weaver has created new literacy initiative to help keep teens reading.  His particular focus is on teens–especially boys–who don't like their English classes, and complain that there's nothing for them to read. The first novel in the Motor Series is Saturday Night Dirt. It is based in small town, dirt track, stock car racing, and set in the Midwest. The Motor Novels are compact, non-intimidating, but with stealth literary value, as Weaver calls it, that teachers and librarians will find helpful in their challenge to keep kids reading.  

To call attention to reading in general and the Motor Series in particular, Weaver and his publisher have formed a stock car team complete with a teenage driver. He will be taking the car to schools and libraries. In his presentations, he will talk about the process of writing a novel, how a novel is published, and the value of reading. On some trips his driver, 17 year old Skyler Smith, will accompany him. The Team Weaver No. 16 stock car will be the hook to draw in reluctant readers. Part of Weaver's message is that it's “okay” to be a reader, that writing is not a miracle but a process, and there's a good book out there for everyone–it's just a matter of finding it.

His focus is on teen literacy, and his presentations are interactive with plenty of Q & A with the students.  The model for his presentations is the good old-fashioned *show and tell.*  Students get a look at a real race car during sessions that are tailored to individual school or library needs. Weaver and his New York publisher are breaking new ground with this unique approach to books and reading.  Look for national media attentionin April, 2008.

From: Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 3/20/2008

FSG Revs Up to Promote Racing Novel

By Sally Lodge

Have Farrar, Straus & Giroux and NASCAR ever been mentioned in the same sentence? It's definitely a first, according to Jeanne McDermott, director of marketing for FSG Books for Young Readers, referring to Will Weaver's novel Saturday Night Dirt, set at a dirt track speedway where young NASCAR hopefuls hone their driving skills. This debut title in Weaver's MOTOR series will be published [in April 2008] with a 50,000-copy first printing.

Fittingly, car racing is the driving force behind the publisher's promotional plans for the novel. FSG is co-sponsoring Weaver's own stock racing car, dubbed The Bookmobile, during this summer's racing season of the Upper Midwest 's WISSOTA stock car league. The author and Skyler Smith, the car's 17-year-old driver, will get the book publicity rolling next Monday [3/24/08] , when they, and the car, appear at the Mall of America outside Minneapolis to participate in CommonBond Communities' Literacy Day, presented in conjunction with Barnes & Noble. In April, they will take the car, which is emblazoned with the title of the novel as well as the publisher's name, on a tour of Minnesota schools.

It was Weaver's interest in literacy, in fact, that drove him to create the MOTOR series. Calling these novels stealth literature, the author explains that his mission is to write fiction that hooks young motorheads on reading. *I had long been aware of the lack of books for kids who love cars but hate their English classes,* he says. *I wanted to write high-quality novels for these kids and also for teachers and librarians, who are out there on the front lines of literacy every day and constantly hear kids say there is nothing for them to read.*  Weaver's hope, he says, is to have these readers think, *Hey, there are books out there for me,* after finishing one of his MOTOR novels.

Weaver was on familiar turf when he wrote Saturday Night Dirt, which takes place at Minnesota's Headwaters Speedway over the course of a race day. *Having grown up on a Minnesota dairy farm, I come from a small-town background of tractors, trucks and street-fast Chevrolets,* he says. *After college I took a turn to the literary and taught writing and literature at Bemidji State University for 20-some years, but have always had that motorhead recessive gene. Now I feel as though I've reclaimed that part of my life.*

For more information: www.motornovels.com