Priscilla Long- On Spaces and Colors & The Writer's Portable Mentor

On Spaces and Colors:

“Priscilla Long has written a book that’s a balm for anyone who’s felt beaten down by the unrelenting assault of modern life and who’s looking for a way to sidestep, a way that can help you rest and think more deeply, even if you don’t have a place to escape to. By examining the spaces and colors and systems that make up our environment, she suggests new ways of existing within them, ways that provide insight and delight for the open and curious mind.” -- Patrick Madden, author of Disparates

The Writer's Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life, Third Edition:

The third edition of a comprehensive writing guide that has been a game changer for thousands of writers. From writing the virtuoso sentence to structuring your story, essay, or book, The Writer’s Portable Mentor offers deeply craft-oriented guidance to writers at all levels, from beginner to advanced. Readers of this new edition will find thoroughly revised chapters on structure and two new structures, the enumeration and the abecedarian; new model sentences and model paragraphs throughout the book; and the final section, “Getting Your Work Into the World,” complete rewritten and updated to account for the continuing changes in the publishing and blogging world. Priscilla Long trains the prose writer to write with a poet’s ear and to observe with a painter’s eye and offers extensive strategies for remaining happily productive and for navigating the current publishing industry to get the work out into the world. The Writer’s Portable Mentor remains a must for every writer’s bookshelf!

Priscilla Long is author of nine books including two new ones: Cartographies of Home: Poems (MoonPath Press, 2026) and On Spaces and Colors (University of New Mexico Press, 2026). Her work has appeared in numerous publications such as The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, and The American Scholar. Her awards include a National Magazine Award and ten of her essays have been honored as "notable" in various years of Best American Essays. She has an MFA from the University of Washington and grew up on a dairy farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. To learn more, go to www.priscillalong.com.

Feel free to reach out to Village Books and Paper Dreams for further assistance at 360-671-2626!