Meredith Sue Willis's "Out of the Mountains" is a collection of thirteen short stories set in contemporary Appalachia. Firmly grounded in place, the stories voyage out into the conflicting cultural identities that native Appalachians experience as they balance mainstream and mountain identities.
Willis's stories explore the complex negotiations between longtime natives of the region and its newcomers and the rifts that develop within families over current issues such as mountaintop removal and homophobia. Always, however, the situations depicted in these stories are explored in the service of a deeper understanding of the people involved, and of the place. This is not the mythic version of Appalachia, but the Appalachia of the twenty-first century.

The narrator of Meredith Sue Willis's new novel has just turned forty, quit her job, been jilted by her live-in boyfriend and suspended by her therapist for nonpayment. Against her better judgment, she takes a job at a settlement house known as "Love Palace" in a run-down community that is about to be razed for urban renewal. Here Martha discovers that she has a talent for managing the dysfunctional institution and its staff. She is attracted by the charismatic reverend who oversees Love Palace as well as by Robby, one of the staff members, who is rich, handsome, recently released from a hospital after a suicide attempt, and intensely ambivalent about his sexuality. Along with the Love Palace crew of runaways, derelicts, struggling blue collar workers, and a former Black Panther among others, Martha has to deal with her ex-hillbilly mother, who favors shoulder pads and big hair; her sister the big-shot lawyer; and her dying Jewish grandmother.

BLAZING PENCILS is a practical, enjoyable guide to writing stories and essays. Based on a master teacher's decades of experience working with students of all ages, BLAZING PENCILS will encourage the aspiring young writer at every step of the process of creating fiction and nonfiction. This book offers clearly articulated concepts as well as time-tested suggestions and tips. Writing samples include quotations from the masters of English and American prose but also from dozens of young writers as they learn to master the literary arts.

Celebrated novelist and story-writer Meredith Sue Willis has also published three widely praised books about the writing process: Personal Fiction Writing, Deep Revision, and Blazing Pencils. In Ten Strategies to Write Your Novel, Willis now turns her attention to the specific delights and challenges of the the big fictional "canvas." This clear, eminently practical guide offers both general approaches and targeted suggestions for working through the complex tasks of writing a novel. Willis describes multiple entry ways into this formidable genre, offers vivid illustrations from classic and contemporary novels, and provides dozens of creative exercises to jump-start the writing process. Ten Strategies to Start Your Novel is destined to become a classic guide for newcomers and veterans alike.

A Space Apart is so deftly and subtly written, I hardly noticed how involved I'd become until I'd read the last page and turned it, wanting more. The Scarlin family is going to be with me for a very long time. - Anne Tyler Willis fleshes out with warmth and tenderness the complexities of family love, which not only defines commitment but deepens the need. An important new talent. -The Kirkus Reviews The narrative carries warmth and strength. The people are as real as your next door neighbors. - Houston Chronicle Willis views the Scarlin family ties and loyalties, limits and tensions, with realism, sensitivity and precision. A noteworthy first novel. - Publisher's Weekly This is the story of a broken family trying to mend itself through three generations. It is a painful but essential process, and like all such repair jobs, it is only partly successful. Before it is over we come to know John and Vera and Mary Kay, as well as Vera's daughters, Lee and Tonie- to understand the wars they must declare and the peaces that they are able to proclaim within the state of being Scarlins. exquisite care, detailing the lives of a West Virginia preacher's family: John Scarlin, minister and son of the Preacher, a wild old born-again Baptist; John's sturdy sister Mary Katherine; his capricious wife Vera, a strong character who commands attention in one fine scene after another; and his daughter Lee and Tonie who grow up to reject and embrace the meaning of Galatia, their hometown...Finally what is revealed by a family, inextricably bound together while struggling with each other's need to find a place apart. Narratively skilled and disciplined, this is an impressive debut. - Library Journal

On a distant world where interplanetary colonists have struggled for generations to survive, a young woman named Espera travels to the fabled City Built of Starships on a quest that may determine the fate of the human species.

Smart, sassy, and eleven years old, Billie Lee lives with her eccentric, multi-racial family in New Jersey. Then Billie's white cousin, Celia, shows up and changes everything. A sleepover at Celia's fancy suburban home releases a food of questions. How can Billie be Black but also White? How can she convince her best friend, Eutreece, that Billie hasn't betrayed their friendship? And when these kids get thrown together at a neighborhood barbecue, how can Billie and her friends accept one another long enough to solve the mystery of a neighbor named Neighbor, who has hidden something strange down by the canal? The answers to these questions challenge Billie far more than she ever thought possible.

Fourth-grader Marco has his hands full when his best friend is chosen to be star of the class play and his sister is accused of killing a gerbil in her kindergarten class.

Willis treats the writing of fiction as a natural process that anyone can do with pleasure. The book includes over 400 helpful writing assignments for all age levels. In addition, teachers will appreciate the appendixes on writing ideas according to age level, other books on writing, and magazines that publish student writing. "A terrific resource for the classroom as well as the novice writer."-Harvard Educational Review.

Marco believes he has special powers that help him make friends with the class bully and deal with some tough situations in the rough neighborhood where they live.