BOOK COVER
BOOK DETAILS
Pub Date: September 15, 2026
Genre: Fiction/Contemporary
Publisher: South Fork Publishers LLC
Page Count: 356
Format: HC/PB/eBook/Audiobook
ISBN: 9798985588040 (HC-DJ)/ 9798985588088 (HC-CW)/ 9798985588057 (PB)/ 9798985588064 (eBook)/ 9798985588071 (Audio)
Price: $27.99 (HC)/$17.99 (PB)
ABOUT THE BOOK
The fish will test you. The pressure will break you.
Award-winning author and three-time tarpon-tournament Grand Champion Mark Weeks welcomes you to Poontown, where obsession, memory, and fish collide as the world’s top tarpon anglers and guides gather to compete for the Sabalo Cup, the sport’s most prestigious tournament.
For five grueling days on the flats, five teams stalk the Silver King, knowing that one perfect cast can win the championship—and one thrown hook can destroy a dream. Success demands sharp instincts, flawless teamwork, and the nerve to stay focused when a hundred-pound tarpon explodes from the water.
Each with something to prove, the contenders come from very different worlds. But they’re united by one obsession: winning the Cup. As rivalries intensify and pressure mounts, the anglers gradually discover that the true battle is not with the fish, but with themselves.
Immersive, suspenseful, and packed with the thrill of elite competition, Poontown puts you on the skiff to experience every cast, bow, and triumph.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
L.M. (“Mark”) Weeks is the bestselling and award-winning author of Bottled Lightning, an international lawyer, and a three-time tarpon-tournament Grand Champion. He is also a multiple fly-rod world-record holder.
Born in Alaska and raised in Idaho, he began fly fishing for trout and steelhead at a young age. After moving to New York for law school, he discovered saltwater fly fishing and later fished extensively throughout Asia while living in Japan, winning a sea-bass fly-fishing tournament and setting records along the way.
What began as a passion became an obsession, cured only by chasing fish around the globe. He took up tarpon fishing in his forties and, after meeting tarpon tournament Grand Champions Eizo Maruhashi and Andy Mill, set his sights on the tournament circuit.
At fifty-six, Weeks stepped down as managing partner of the Tokyo office of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP to pursue tournament fishing—and to write. His goal was to win one of the “Big Three” invitational tarpon tournaments in the Florida Keys by age sixty and write a novel about tarpon fly fishing.
There were two problems: He had no tournament guide, and he had yet to be invited to compete. He eventually partnered with Captain Andy Thompson and earned invitations to the Big Three and the HLM Tarpon Cup. Together they won the Don Hawley Invitational Tarpon Fly Tournament twice and the HLM Tarpon Cup. Years later, Weeks was appointed chairman of the Hawley.
Throughout his years of tarpon fishing, he kept detailed notes about life on the water and the stories he heard there. As the saying goes, people will tell you things on a skiff they’d never tell their therapist. Poontown grew out of those experiences and stories
TIMELY TIE-INS
July
- National Fishing Month – July 25-August 31
- World Nature Conservation Day – 28
September
- National Estuaries Week – 21-28
- International Hunting and Fishing Day – 27
- Fish Amnesty Day – 27
- World Rivers Day – 28
October
- National Book Month
- World Sustainability Day – 29
November
- World Fisheries Day – 21
SAMPLE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
- How did you get into fly fishing, and why tarpon fishing in particular?
- Why did you decide to get into the tournaments? What were your goals
- Were there books you read or videos you watched about tarpon fishing?
- I understand that you had some real success, winning one of the three major tarpon tournaments twice and another tournament once. Would you do anything differently if you had to do it all over again?
- You have lived more than half of your adult life in Japan. Why did you go there in the first place?
- Did you fish in Japan and Asia more broadly?
- Is Poontown a real place?
- What is the inspiration for the story?
- Are you involved in conservation, and who do you believe are the most effective conservationists?
- Your first novel, Bottled Lightning, was an international legal thriller. Why did you write your second novel in a completely different genre?
- What’s your writing process? For example, are you a pantser or a plotter?
- Do you plan on turning Poontown into a series?
PRAISE
“Whether you fish or not, you will be ‘hooked’ on this imaginative novel about a five-day championship tarpon tournament in an imaginary place based on the Florida Keys with five interesting international anglers and their home-grown guides….In the words of the author ‘tournaments expose every physical and emotional vulnerability, testing every weak link in one’s armor.’ Through Mark Weeks’ skillful imagination and reportage, this novel will also test every reader’s emotions. Poontown is a well-crafted delight that will fascinate, enlighten, and entertain.”
—Bob Rich, bestselling author of Looking Through Water, now a feature film
“On the surface, L. M. Weeks’ delightful Poontown is a thrilling look at the zaniness that goes into the preparation for, and participation in, a high-stakes fishing tournament, and all that is lost and all that is gained along the way. What lies beneath, however, is something more powerful: a portrait of human nature in a world in which the tipping point for our fisheries and ecology is nigh.”
—Monte Burke, New York Times bestselling author of Saban, Lords of the Fly and Men of Troy
“A comic, lively and highly entertaining novel that captures the irrational obsession of one of the world’s greatest sports.”
—David Coggins, author of The Optimist: The Case for the Fly Fishing Life and The Believer: A Year in the Fly Fishing Life
“L. M. Weeks’ thrilling book, Poontown, dives into the fury of people who chase prehistoric fish, compete in tournaments, and battle the unrelenting ocean itself. A gripping exploration of obsession and passion, on and off the water.”
—Andy Mill, five-time Gold Cup Tarpon Tournament Grand Champion and author of A Passion for Tarpon
“The Real Housewives have nothing on tarpon anglers—and L. M. Weeks proves it in Poontown, a sharp, funny, and deeply authentic novel that captures the obsession, rivalries, and exhilaration of elite tarpon fishing.”
—Kat Vallilee, first woman to win the March Merkin permit fly tournament and holder of five world records
“Witty, fast-paced, and wildly entertaining, Poontown captures the obsession, rivalries, and larger-than-life personalities of the tarpon tournament world.”
—Meredith McCord, three-time Ladies Tarpon Fly Tournament Grand Champion
BOOK DETAILS
Pub Date: May 17, 2022
Genre: Memoir / Christian Inspirational
Publisher: She Writes Press
Page Count: 304
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1647429003
Price: $15.99