Reviews

“Bill is a real natural storyteller in the old-style mountain sense, both in the way he tells a story (the way he wants to! the slow pace of setting it up, drawing it out..) and in the way his characters define and express themselves. “Powerball,” a real feat of the imagination, is told by a working miner whose life is ruined by winning the lottery….Bill can switch from this character to a crackerjack mountain lawyer in “Never Again;” or Rayburn in “A Mountain Man,” a coal miner and explosives expert from Eastern Kentucky who becomes a troubled hero in maybe the best Vietnam story I have ever read.”
LEE SMITH
Award winning novelist and short story writer – Fair and Tender Ladies, Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger, Oral History

“Bill Weinberg’s stories reflect the lives and character of the people of two notable places-Eastern Kentucky and the remote Caribbean islands of St. John and St. Croix They ae about struggle, fears, and mistakes, but they are also about right choices, love and caring.”
LOYAL JONES
Appalachian scholar and writer

“The stories in Troublesome Creek and Beyond, Bill Weinberg’s fine story collection, are thematically bound by the roots of home as well as an insightful awareness of the loss and grief that lingers there. Some of the most memorable moments are those when characters are aware of the goodness they once knew or might have possessed, and yet are left in a place of helpless recognition; Weinberg successfully mines these emotion with compassion and honesty.”
JILL MCCORKLE
author of Life After Life

“From Kentucky to Vietnam to the Caribbean, the stories in Bill Weinberg’s brilliant Troublesome Creek and Beyond are as powerful and moving as they are beautifully crafted. This is a fantastic collection full of wisdom, humor, and grief.”
MARK POWELL
author of Small Treasons

“Each story in Troublesome Creek and Beyond is honest and well-crafted. Being “of these hills” Bill Weinberg knows his Appalachian characters well but his deft hand allows the richness of the Caribbean to come alive on the page too. Weinberg made me care about all of these people long after I read each story. You will too.”
CRYSTAL WILKINSON
award winning author of The Birds of Opulence and Writer-in-Residence at Berea College