Out of the Mountains — 2010 ·

“Character-driven and contemporary, the stories mirror situations we know.… As a writer (Willis) uses the imagination of her heart to explore her cultural heritage from many vantage points.”

Now and Then: The Appalachian Magazine

“Pick up this book and read it a story at a time. Meet Willis’ people and understand the issues they face. You won’t be the same after you do.”

The Advocate (Baton Rouge)

“Meredith Sue Willis writes sparkling, masterful stories, grounded in the wisdom of place, musical in their voices and cadences, and truly joyful in their understanding of the power of words. Reader, enter in!”

Jayne Anne Phillips

“In Out of the Mountains, Meredith Sue Willis gives her characters the juice of life. Some turn up in more than one story, prompting the pleasure of recognition. Willis writes about people from Appalachia’s West Virginia corner, where she herself comes from, and about people from New York, where she lives now, with a smattering of folks from elsewhere. They’re all alive on the page. . . . Grade: A-”

CityBeat (Cincinnati)

“What does connect the stories is a sense of displacement and restlessness—insiders who leave the mountains to live elsewhere and outsiders who come to the mountains. There’s a tension between belonging and not belonging, of insider vs. outsider, of rural vs. urban, of traditional customs vs. new ways.”

In This Light blog

“The words have a precision to them, swift and clear and vivid, infinitely correct brush strokes that make tiny adjustments to the color of the story. And there is not a wasted word. You think you aren’t reading about Appalachia, but you are. Without your knowing, Meredith Sue Willis paints Appalachia on your heart.”

Lee Maynard — author of The Pale Light of Sunset

“The Appalachian stories in Meredith Sue Willis’s Out of the Mountains are lively, funny, and, in good mountain tradition, sometimes a little bizarre. Willis uses her characters to show the ways people work out the conflict between what they desire and what they get. Alert to the edgy personal and political tensions between ambition and reward, between longing and satisfaction, these stories offer up essential human conflicts wisely and with a lot of heart.”

Maggie Anderson — author of Windfall: New and Selected Poems