Will Weaver
Will Weaver
Author
Will Weaver writes fiction for adults and young adults. He was born in Northern Minnesota in 1950 and grew up on a dairy farm. His novels and short stories have earned the praises of reviewers from coast-to-coast for their unflinching realism. The New York Times Book Review called A Gravestone Made of Wheat, "a graceful collection, one that views America's heartland with a candid but charitable eye."
Red Earth, White Earth, his debut novel (1986), and was produced as a CBS television movie in 1989. A Gravestone Made of Wheat & Other Stories (1989) won many awards, including the Minnesota Book Award for Fiction. Several of the stories were performed on National Public Radio. The title story was produced as the independent feature film Sweet Land starring Ned Beatty and Alan Cumming. In October, 2006, Sweet Land earned rave reviews in its national theater release. In February, 2007, it won the independent film industry's Spirit Award for Best First Feature, and is now out on DVD.
Will has also written several successful novels for young adults. Each novel in his Billy Baggs series (Striking Out, Farm Team, and Hard Ball (1993/95/98) was honored as a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association. His novel Memory Boy (2001) is used widely in schools across the United States. Following Claws (2001), his novel Full Service (2005) won starred reviews and was also listed as an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Defect, the story of a young man with a miraculous birth "defect", won the 2008 Minnesota Book Award in Young Adult Fiction. Saturday Night Dirt, the first of a series on dirt-racers, was released on April 1, 2008.
"Saturday Night Dirt was written for two groups: all the motorheads out there who love cars and are not wild about English classes; and all the teachers and librarians who continually have to find good books for teens–ones kids will actually read. Writing SND was a lot of fun, too, as it allowed me to get my own motorhead back on. As a teenager I was all about drag racing, smoking tires and hot summer nights. However, then came college where my life took a turn for the literary. A career of teaching kept me away from cars, speedways, and high rpm, but now it feels good to reclaim that important part of my life."
Formerly an English professor at Bemidji State University, Mr. Weaver lives in Northern Minnesota, a region he writes from and loves. He is an avid outdoorsman, and enjoys hunting, fishing, canoeing and hiking with his family and friends.
Visit his Official Website.