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About Meredith Sue Willis
4-13-24 Image by Kari Gunter-Seymour
Meredith Sue Willis is a writer and teacher and enthusiastic reader. Born and raised in West Virginia, she is a proud member of the Appalachian Renaissance with deep roots in West Virginia and the far western mountain counties of Virginia. She now lives in an inner ring suburb of New York City. (Biography here.)
Her books have been published by Charles Scribner's Sons, HarperCollins,Ohio University Press, Mercury House, West Virginia University Press, Monteymayor Press, Teachers & Writers Press, Mountain State Press, Hamilton Stone Editions, and others.
She teaches at New York University's School of Professional Studies and gives workshops for writers, as well as readings and visits to libraries, book groups, and universities. She has also done many writer-in-the-school residencies
Her husband Andrew B. Weinberger is a rheumatologist, and their son Joel Weinberger is a software engineer in Los Angeles, California. He lives with his wife Sarah Weinberger, who works at Kaiser Permanente, and their children Shira (7), Eli (5), and Lev (2). The latter three are involved in deep exploration of the universe.
MSW does small scale organic gardening in her back yard and is active in her local Ethical Culture Society and in the integration organization, South Orange/Maplewood Community Coalition on Race.
Meredith Sue Willis's Manuscript Consultations & Online Classes
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Books for Readers #238 Reviews of books by Percival Everett, Diane Simmons, Alice McDermott, Cherrie Moraga, Anne McCaffrey, Tui Sutherland, Edith Wharton, James M. Cain, Margaret Atwood, Albert Camu, Caleb Carr, Tony Hillerman, Shirley Jackson. Elaine Pagels. Reviews by Joe Chuman and Fay Martin.
The Hamilton Stone Review: No. 51, Fall 2024 Poetry: James Daniels, Richard Lyons, Tim Suermondt, George Kalamaras, John S. Eustis, Sharon Whitehall, Ronald Moran, Rick Adang, J.R. Solonche, Susan Shea, Ryan J. Davidson, Greg McBride, Barry Seiler, Josh Mahler, Stephen Gibson, Tony Beyer, Mary Dean Lee, Claire Scott, Moriah Hampton, Stan Sanvel Rubin. Prose: Mark Connelly, Cara Diaconoff,Sohana Manzoor, Eric Maroney, Carlos Ramet, Bob Rehm. For information about submissions, click here.
MSW Selected News & Activities
(For older news, click here.)
New MSW short-short story "Recessional" now up at Raven's Perch.
3-26-25 MSW hosts Diane Simmons at Words Bookstore in Maplewood, NJ in honor of the republishing of Simmons' Dreams Like Thunder.
3-23-25 MSW interviewed artist Joanne Leone at ECS.
12-8-24 MSW on a panel "If I Knew Then What I Know Now: Lessons from Life at the Ethical Culture Society of Essex County, Maplewood, NJ
10-27-24 MSW interviewed Jean Vitrano, Mindfulness Teacher at the Ethical Culture Society of Essex County.
MSW's three favorite reads for 2024 at Shepherd.com
9-24-24 MSW and Andy Weinberger spoke about Ethical Culture at Winchester Gardens in Maplewood, NJ.
4-30-24 MSW visited a writing group that discussed Their Houses.
4-13-24 MSW read at Women of Appalachia Project Women Speak at the Frank & Jane Gabor West VirginiaFolklife Center at Fairmont State
MSW and others reading at Women of Appalachia Project Women Speak at the Frank & Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center at Fairmont State 4-13-24. Left to right: Patsy Kisner, Kristi Stevens Walke, Jennifer Browne, Kari Gunter-Seymour, Rose Smith, Meredith Sue Willis, Bonnie Proudfoot, Susan Truxell Sauter, ,Nathalie Sypolt, Cat Pleska.
Images by Kari Gunter-Seymour
2-21-24 Hilton Obenzinger says, "In Martha, Meredith Sue Willis has created a great hardboiled narrator. She’s been hurt and pissed off, mainly by her two “rotters,” her father and her ex-husband, and the world that’s dealt her a tough hand, and she finds relief through sex and constant instability, confiding in her therapist, when she can afford her.
She’s ready for change, and stumbles into the Love Palace, a church, a social center, and an organizing HQ for its elusive charismatic spiritual leader, and by happenstance she becomes its administrator. The Love Palace is among the last low-income housing buildings in the riverside New Jersey neighborhood being overrun by gentrification, and it becomes the focal point for a fight to save what’s left. The Love Palace is a catalyst, pulling together multiple lives and stories into a pulsating community. Martha ends up cajoled to marry a much younger man, scion of the rich couple who owns the Love Palace as a project of their church – or at least we think they own it. The Love Palace community fights eviction and demolition, and knowing who owns the building is crucial – and knowing the truth about the spiritual leader as well. The novel is filled with surprises and revelations as the mysteries peel away, and Martha grows increasingly capable of handling the madness of seduction, deceit, and betrayal. Love Palace, the novel, is a delight to read, and Martha is a tough character worth meeting again and again.
Buy it from Bookshop.org or any of the usual online hardcopy suspects. Also available as a Kindle book on Amazon, and for most e-reader formats at Smashwords.com
January 7, 2024 Meredith Sue Willis read and discussed "The Sweetest Man Who Ever Lived" at the Ethical Culture Society of Essex County by Zoom
12-25-23 MSW's list of Best Great American Novels from Appalachia--and check out Shepherd.com!
12-1-23 New Short Story by Meredith Sue Willis just up at Cold Mountain Review:"The Sweetest Man Who Ever Lived." (Scroll down to read).
Audio recording of MSW reading "The Sweetest Man Who Ever Lived," Cold Mountain Review 2023.
The Iran Book News Agency (IBNA) has just announced that "Juvenile fiction book Billie of Fish House Lane by American author Meredith Sue Willis has been published in Persian and is available to Iranian Children."
Just Published--in Persian! My novel for children Billie of Fish House Lane. See announcement here.
June 9-11, 2023 West Virginia Writers Conference, Cedar Lakes Conference Center, Ripley, West Virginia. Presented a Master Class on Description; Strategies for Revising Long Prose Narratives; and Cultural Appropriation and Cancel Culture in fiction writing.
May 11, 2023 MSW paid a virtual Visit to the Between the Lines Book Club at the Clarksburg Library, Clarksburg,WV to discuss Their Houses.
4-23-23 MSW with Andy Weinberger presented A Celebration of Shakespeare at the Ethical Culture Society of Essex County, NJ.
4-19-23: MSW enjoyed a virtual visit with Heather Lustig-Curran's creative writing club at Louisa County High School in Mineral, Virginia.
Spring 2023: Starting and Sustaining Your Novel, Part II. A private online class. See MSW's information on private classes here.
"Foote" A Mystery Novel," by Tom Bredehoft, review by MSW at Southern Literary Review, November 2, 2022.
Fall 2023: Starting and Sustaining Your Novel, Part I. A private online class. See MSW's information on private classes here.
8-13-22 The Big Picture: Structuring the Long Prose Narrative. Meredith Sue Willis's private workshops, strictly limited in size. To learn about these classes, see details here
2-13-22 Ethical Culture Program: Alice Robinson-Gilman interviewed MSW about how she got involved with the South Orange/Maplewood Community Coalition on Race, and what she learned there.
12-28-20 review of Soledad in the Desert at Review Tales.
12-26-20 Review of Saving Tyler Hake in Southern Literary Review
Review of "Saving Tyler Hake" by Rebekah Ferrell in Books for Readers Newsletter #211, October 2020.
Fall 2020: Two new books of fiction by Meredith Sue Willis.
Click on the image for a direct link to the book's publisher.
11-8-20 Review of Saving Tyler Hake in
The Herald-Dispatch of Huntington!
October 25, 2020: Two short stories by MSW in The Best of Slab, Issue 15 (Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania 2020)--"Decorations" and "Thought Balloons." Copies available at www.slablitmag.org.
Podcast of MSW on Having Fun With Revision: The bite size story telling show
Review of Soledad in the Desert at Renaissance Writer!
Review of Soledad by Diane Simmons
11-27-19 Review of Their Houses in Southern Literary Review by Donna Meredith.
"[In Their Houses, Willis] sets up a bizarre but plausible set of circumstances, and rides the wild waves from there..." The Monday Book, Wendy Welch blog 10-29-19
Review of Their Houses by Jess Walker in Morgantown Magazine
October 9, 2019 MSW read with Marc Harshman and Valerie Nieman at McNally Jackson Prince Street
"Love Done Wrong," review of Their Houses in American Book Review Volume 40, Number 3, March/April 2019, pp. 23-24, by Allison Epstein: "Their Houses treats religion sympathetically without being afraid to criticize its failings."
Review of Their Houses by Emily Masters in Appalachian Heritage, UNC Press Volume 46, Number 4, Fall 2018 : "Perhaps the most fulfilling aspect about Willis's novel is the way it engages themes of mental and physical illness."
Upcoming MSW Appearances, Classes, Publications and More
New MSW short-short story upcoming at Raven's Perch: "Recessional"
Youtube "The Craft of Story Telling" with Meredith Sue Willis from Frances House.
MSW's next Novel Writing Class at NYU is Fall 2025, September 10 - November 19, 2025.
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