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.
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.
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.
As a prequel to the Meredith Sue Willis's acclaimed sci-fi novel THE CITY BUILT OF STARSHIPS, this tale relates the adventures of a girl reaching womanhood while living in "the world with two suns." Soledad, intelligent and strong-willed, must make sense of life and love in a stark quasi-Buddhist community attempting to survive on an alien planet. She succeeds -- but just barely. Soledad faces multiple challenges in The Encampment, the isolated, cult-like group of refugees who fled The City Built of Starships years ago. The larger community -- the result of earthlings having emigrated from the home planet several generations earlier -- started out as an organized effort to colonize what they call the Second World. But the new settlement quickly degenerated into a brutal class system: dominant Officers holding sway over subordinate Hands. Resisting this hierarchy, a band of rebels sought desert solitude to escape tyranny and to follow a meditative Path. Young Soledad, growing up in this community and now approaching adulthood, must make sense of herself and her place in a dangerous world. She finds solace in friendships with a few peers and, especially, in her interactions with bizarre pterodactyl-like creatures called yaegers. Little by little she understands both the limits to her freedom and a way to follow her own path. SOLEDAD IN THE DESERT presents both a fully realized alternate reality and a thoughtful, observant protagonist intent on finding her place in a world that often makes no sense but nonetheless presents an intelligent young woman with opportunities to find meaning.
If your students groan and go limp when you Suggest they revise their writing, this is the book for you. Deep Revision covers: Revision as a natural process -- Learning to revise by editing other people's writing -- Learning to revise by using other people's comments on your writing -- Going deeper by adding -- Changing media to revise -- Using point of view and voice for revising fiction -- Revising nonfiction with the techniques of fiction -- Learning revision by revising existing works of literature -- Beginning and polishing -- Structuring the longer work. Willis gives a wealth of specific revision exercises for both fiction and nonfiction, as well as examples from her own students and from literature.
Re-visions: Stories from Stories is a collection of spin-offs from myth, fiction, and the Bible. From a new look at Adam and Eve and why they left the Garden to a grown-up Topsy from Uncle Tom's Cabin to the confessions of Saint Augustine's concubine- each story offers a gloss on the original as well as insights into how we can live today.
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.
From a West Virginia coal town to Las Vegas to New York, Oradell Greengold has fought enough battles in her life. On the cruise ship Golden Argonaut, her commanding personality and her ability to tip heavily have earned her a life of freedom and comfort. But when shipboard emotions run high, Oradell's past won't let her stand aside.
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