The Long Run: A Creative Inquiry
Now in its third printing!
How do we keep doing this—making art?
Stacey D'Erasmo had been writing for twenty years and had published three novels when she asked herself this question. She was past the rush of her first books and wondering what to expect—how to stay alive in her vocation—in the decades ahead.
D'Erasmo began to interview older artists she admired to find out how they'd done it. She saw connections between them and to artists across time: Colette, David Bowie, Ruth Asawa. She found insights, too, about what has driven and thwarted and shaped her as a writer.
Instead of easy answers or a road map, The Long Run offers one practitioner's conversations, anecdotes, confidences, and observations about sustaining a creative life. Along the way, it radically redefines artistic success—shifting the focus from novelty, output, and external recognition toward freedom, fluidity, resistance, community, resilience, and longevity.
Praise for The Long Run
"A rich meditation on the artist's life and work over time...a lyrical exploration of life and art. D'Erasmo's essays invite readers to be part of that company, to find themselves in her pages, and, in turn, to invite other artists into the conversation. Though each essay stems from an artist the author interviewed, D'Erasmo's associative genius takes her into new and surprising territory. In musical sentences... D'Erasmo explores not just what it means to have a long career in the arts, but what it means to be an artist, to be queer, and to be a citizen of the Earth, making this book a unique contribution to the canon of work about the life of an artist. Artists of all kinds will find inspiration and good company within these thoughtful essays." Kirkus (Starred)
"'The Long Run' is, in fact, less a book than a dinner party that D'Erasmo has generously invited us to attend... Each of D'Erasmo's creators has something to teach us about survival as artists. But so, too, does D'Erasmo herself. She is the host of the party and her life’s journey forms its core... The honesty and intimacy of D'Erasmo's story is reason enough to read the book. But does she or the artists we meet in her pages answer the question she first posed? Not really — because there is no magic formula. There are only rich stories from which we can learn and suggestions to be considered. Be open to the forces you fear. Beware of people in positions of power. Exercise your will. And, finally, surrender to where life takes you." The New York Times
"An exploratory, impressionistic book that roves across memoir, portraiture and cultural meditation... D'Erasmo is a graceful and heartfelt writer, particularly good at distilled evocations of character... It's a pleasure to dip into these creative lives." Washington Post
"Gutsy....D'Erasmo plants her subjects together in unexpected arrangements, throwing in some favorite seeds of her own—a reference to Colette or Roberto Bolaño here, a look at Ruth Asawa's sculptures there—and then steps back to see what patterns emerge....The page glows." The New Yorker
"Novelist D'Erasmo (The Complicities) takes a rewarding deep dive into why—and how—artists are able to go on making art... Artists seeking inspiration would do well to check this out." Publishers Weekly
"The Long Run is a primer for thinking about the varied ways we might craft artistic careers without being subsumed by the organizations and institutions that employ us, whether these institutions are situated in the art-biz or the vanishing olive groves of academe. The book dramatizes how varied artists, and D'Erasmo herself, have worked to "open their other eyes"—and of how they adapt to changing conditions to keep them open. As such, it offers an encouraging narrative for emerging artists and a series of important reminders for established artists. It brings us all together as a community of makers on the page. Through its fusion of interview and memoir, The Long Run offers a model for what we can provide each other as we nurture the long run of our art-making lives: "a shared sense that here, only here, can we be entirely ourselves." Tony Trigilio for On the Seawall
"In this brief but impressively substantive exploration of the lives and work of eight artists who have sustained enduring careers, D'Erasmo also interrogates her own path as a novelist, literary critic, and teacher as she searches for the answer to one pressing question: 'How do we keep doing this—making art?'" Harvey Freedenberg, Shelf Awareness
"As far as I'm concerned, Stacey D'Erasmo's The Art of Intimacy is required reading for any and all writers, a masterclass on how to render the electric tension that occurs between characters on the page. Her latest looks just as important: a collection of conversations between artists on what it means to make and sustain a living as a creative person." Michelle Hart, Electric Lit
"Oh, how I needed this book! Stacey D'Erasmo has given us a tender and fascinating lineage of artists who demonstrate the myriad ways to build a life around an artistic practice and sustain it. Between their stories emerges her own gorgeous and intimate memoir, a queer k¨nstlerroman that had me rapt. Every moment of reading these pages felt like ingesting a delicious, life-saving tonic. What a gift of a book." Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
"Stacey D'Erasmo is one of my favorite writers, full stop. For years, I've been learning from her, admiring her wisdom and style, attempting to emulate her cool. I suspected she held secrets about how to really live, and I was right. Here she offers wisdom in the form of portraits—appreciations—each one precise, wondrous, meditative, often sexy, and exquisitely wrought. The Long Run is a revelation. A book about sustaining an artistic practice, yes, but also a book that offers sustenance itself." Justin Torres, author of Blackouts, winner of the National Book Award
"In and around these conversations with a range of disparate creators, Stacey D'Erasmo gives us a master class in openness, in generosity, and in courage. Fierce, funny, and philosophical, The Long Run is a necessary companion for anyone who makes things." Lauren Elkin, author of Flâneuse and Art Monsters
"Stacey D'Erasmo takes her place alongside Olivia Laing with these brilliant portraits of artists who have stayed in over decades and the perspectives that have kept them returning to their work. The surprise bonus is the portrait of D'Erasmo herself and the New York scenes that have buoyed her own long writing practice. An essential book that I'll always keep at hand." Alice Elliott Dark, author of Fellowship Point and In the Gloaming
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