Stories from the Dirt

“John Long is a genre unto himself. Few other writers can match his lean and unpredictable prose, and this latest collection proves that he remains a shrewd witness of today’s cutting-edge adventure sports.” —Andrew Bisharat, climber, National Geographic writer, and editor of eveningsends.com “John Long makes me sick—with envy, I mean. How a futuristic ultra-elite-athlete became a truly accomplished writer of literary adventure stories—delivering complex emotions and characters alongside throat-grabbing thrills—is, well, nothing short of miraculous.”—Daniel Duane, Men's Journal contributing editor and author of Lighting Out: A Golden Year in Yosemite “No one spins literary adventure yarns like award-winning author John Long. In Stories From the Dirt, Long writes of his world travels, driven by discovery, a chance alignment of cosmic happenings, or by a ‘curious-sounding village or tribe that nobody knew much about.’ My favorite, ‘Last Place on No Map,’ is a literal journey to one of Dante’s rings of hell, a jungle slop hole in Brazil where ‘40,000 muddy men, effectively slaves, gripped by gold fever, sustained by jungle tubers and coconut juice,’ shovel and sluice the watery earth hoping to find a nugget. Most find disease and ruined lives, but Long finds a story. Then it’s onward, upriver to that curious-sounding village.”—Duane Raleigh, publisher, Trail Runner, Ascent, and Rock & Ice magazines