Dancing with the Muse in Old Age

by Priscilla Long

Dancing with the Muse in Old Age uses current science to present old age as a potentially happy, creative, and productive time. Numerous models-including many elders active in the arts-illustrate the possibilities.

220 pages, Paperback

Published November 8, 2022

About the author

Priscilla Long is author of Minding the Muse: A Handbook for Painters, Composers, Writers, and Other Creators (Coffeetown Press), a book of essays titled Fire and Stone: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (University of Georgia Press), and Crossing Over: Poems (University of New Mexico Press). She is also author of The Writer's Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life (Wallingford Press). Priscilla is a Seattle-based writer of poetry, essays, creative nonfictions, fictions, science, and history. Her awards include a National Magazine Award. Her rigorous and extremely popular classes are always full for the good reason that her writers routinely become more skilled and get more published. Her scholarly history book is Where the Sun Never Shines: A History of America's Bloody Coal Industry (Paragon House). Author's website: www.PriscillaLong.com. Photo by Tony Ober."

Reviews

[Stacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Priscilla Long's latest book, Dancing with the Muse In Old Age, shatters myths about aging, very old age, creativity, and productivity. Long's review of countless studies shows that old age does not have to be a time of languishing in an old-age home. Even artists with little in the bank find ways of creating to ensure wellbeing. Artist may have to adapt how they work, but that's not the same as stopping work. The number one example here is Henri Matisse who turned to scissors and paint to create his magical cutouts. In Long's view, "Death is our deadline." Until then, the pleasure of creating should continue. Please excuse me as I have to go back to writing.

[Wilhemina Condon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every now and then, if you’re lucky, a book comes along at just the right time in your life. Dancing with the Muse in Old Age, by Priscilla Long, is such a book. My joints were aching, my hair had turned gray, and I was wondering if my race was run. I was falling into the trap of ageism, that toxic trap that the writer describes as equating old age with being ill, decrepit, and in physical and mental decline. Dancing with the Muse in Old Age, dismantles this stereotype of old age as being a period of bleak and inevitable decline. It gives us a vision of old age as a joyful, creative, and freeing time of life. It’s full of examples of people who have led vibrant creative lives well into their nineties and beyond. It is a hopeful and necessary book for anyone who wants to thrive, not just live, well into old age.

[Susan K Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Priscilla Long's most recent book, Dancing with the Muse in Old Age, made me wish I were more of a natural optimist. True, I don't need to carry on the gloomy attitude my father passed along to me, and I try, I really do, to negate my pessimism and focus on my gratitude for the good life I've experienced. Maybe what I need to do is to project that grateful attitude into my future a little bit.

Priscilla Long has written a very positive, reassuring, science-based, practical volume with dozens and dozens of great examples of older/old women and men who continued (or even began!) their creative lives when a lot of their peers basically gave up: gave up learning anything new, trying out novel kinds of work or art or anything that takes some effort.

The essence of Long's message, as I see it, is that attitude is nearly everything. If you have incorporated our society's message that being old is simply rotten, that being old is too late to accomplish or enjoy or grow or feel engaged or to find meaning, then you're missing what can be a gratifying time of life. She offers a plethora of examples of creative types who are or have aged well, in that they keep doing what they love or have learned to love other kinds of creating that fit them better at a later age.

It's a very encouraging book. When I feel especially down about my life (I'm just a short few years behind Long in this aging business), I'm pretty sure I will remember Long and what she learned and shared with us readers.

[Janet Yoder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dancing with the Muse in Old Age speaks to me at 70, and it would speak to me just as well at 50 or 90. The book gives encouragement, the kind based in reality, based on research, the kind I can use. The book is full of the personal stories of creative older artists, writers, musicians, teachers, scientists. What makes them tick? What makes them get up each morning and do their work?

Each chapter ends with a writing prompt that helps me look at my own attitude toward aging, at the loss of loved ones, at technology, goals, physical health, and always at the creative process. I will write in response to each of these prompts and see if I can surprise myself. Here is the final prompt: “What are your goals? For the next five years? For this week? For today?” It makes me want to grab my notebook and pen and then ask the muse for this next dance, the one that starts just now.

I am grateful to Priscilla Long for this well-researched and intriguing book that supports and challenges in equal measure.

[Arleen Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Priscilla Long’s latest book, Dancing with the Muse in Old Age, is a powerful and empowering look at ageism and current research around growing old. She uses plentiful and varied biographical examples of folks who have lived or are living long lives steeped in creativity, while she explores the essentials to longevity. Reading this book and responding to the writing prompts at the end of each chapter has changed my attitude toward aging and added a decade to my personal life expectancy. Thank you, Priscilla!

[Karen May]

Recommended by Anne Marie