Minding the Muse is a practical handbook for the artist or writer-highly experienced, aspiring, or somewhere in between. Long draws from her extensive background as a poet, writer, and master teacher, but also gathers the insights and practices of a wide range of high-achieving artists, including mystery writer Raymond Chandler, choreographer Twyla Tharp, poet and performance artist Patti Smith, and the painter Joan Miró. Beginning with the first sparks of artistic creation-"Gathering, Hoarding, Conceptualizing"-Long moves through the various stages to "Completing Works" and "Poet as Peddler, Painter as Pusher: Marketing." Every creative worker will find something here to take to heart and into the studio or workroom.

Priscilla Long is a Seattle-based author and teacher of writing. Her work includes poetry, creative nonfictions, fictions, history, and science. Her other most recent book is Fire and Stone: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? Her book of poems is Crossing Over: Poems. She is also author of The Writer's Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life and the scholarly history book Where the Sun Never Shines: A History of America's Bloody Coal Industry. For more information please visit PriscillaLong.com and PriscillaLong.org.