Please contact me today to reserve your copy and participate in what is sure to be a fabulous tour. If you've never participated in a tour, feel free to inquire and I'll be happy to explain how it works - you don't even have to have your own blog!
Send an email today to participate - email address: crystal@wow-womenonwriting.com or crystaljotto@gmail.com
Be sure to include the following:
* The email address you'd like your ebook sent to - and/or mailing address for your physical copy.
*The name and url for your blog, or a note letting me know you do not have a blog
*A date you would prefer as your first choice, as well as a 2nd choice - this will be the date your review will be posted to your blog/this blog and social media. (the tours run as follows: author interview on May 17th on the WOW! blog, and reviews will post the 18th through the 27th)
Including posting to a blog, it would be fabulous if you could post your review on Amazon/Goodreads as well as your own social media. This is greatly appreciated although not mandatory to participate in a book blog tour.
As soon as all the dates have been filled for the tours, and a calendar has been put together, I'll email a media kit to everyone involved. This kit will include the author pictures and bios as well the book cover and official summary and buy links for Praying for Restraint. This email will also include the calendar for the tour and should be able to answer most (if not all) the questions you may have concerning tour participation.
Thank you in advance for your time and consideration in this and all matters.
Allen Long works as a CNA-certified nursing assistant-at that supposed sanctuary of caring, an inner-city general hospital. What an unforgettable parade of bizarre, needy, abusive, menacing, endearing, and poignant humanity passes through its doors. And those are just the staff and administrators! Meanwhile, the patient population spans the affluent and sophisticated to the homeless, the mentally ill, addicts, gang members, and criminals in custody. Praying for Restraint takes the reader on a journey into the absurd and surreal that is ultimately uplifting and harrowing, both funny and heartbreaking. Long's struggle to survive a relentlessly toxic work environment with body, soul, and marriage intact is as gripping as the battle against childhood abuse in his previous memoir, Less than Human. Reviewers found that book "inspiring, honest, and beautifully written, engaging, and thought-provoking." Praying for Restraint earns that praise and more.
About Allen Long:
Here’s how I became a writer. When I was a child in Arlington, Virginia, as soon as I understood what stories were, I began telling them to anyone who would listen. As a fifth-grader, I was recruited by the Storytellers, a small group of supervised fifth- and sixth-graders who told stories once a month to kids in the first, second, and third grades.
When I reached sixth grade, my teacher allowed me to skip all of my English assignments in exchange for me writing her a short story each week. In seventh grade, one of my stories placed second in an English class competition.
One of my favorite memories from childhood is telling my younger brother, David, a made-up story every night during the summers we slept in twin beds in our cool basement.
I earned a BA in Communications/Journalism from Virginia Tech. While I was there, I took every creative writing class offered and wrote a story that placed second at a regional literary festival sponsored by nearby Hollins University. During my student days, I also worked half-time for two years as a reporter for The Roanoke Times.
After I graduated, I accepted a scholarship to earn an MA in English/fiction writing from Hollins University, where I wrote the first half of a novel. I then received a second scholarship and a teaching assistant position to pursue an MFA in fiction writing at the University of Arizona.
Shortly after I graduated, I published a story called “Second Honeymoon” in Concho River Review. After that, I decided to continue my writing education by working with master editor Tom Jenks. When Tom was a senior editor at Scribner’s, he completed Ernest Hemingway’s unfinished novel, The Garden of Eden, which became a bestseller.
I published two more stories, and then I decided to change gears and write a memoir called “Soul Breach” about the high level of illegal and unethical behavior I’d witnessed while working in the management consulting field. The story was published, and my good friend and editor, Kit McIlroy, told me it was the best piece I’d ever written, and he encouraged me to write more nonfiction.
I followed his advice and wrote and published magazine-length memoirs about the happiest, most intriguing, and worst moments in my life. These combined pieces became my first book, Less than Human: A Memoir (Black Rose Writing, 2016).
After that, I published memoirs on a wide variety of subjects, including two about my work as an assistant nurse in a poorly managed inner-city hospital populated by challenging patients, including violent mentally ill ones who often were not sedated or restrained.
“Keep writing about that hospital, and you’ve got your next book,” Kit said. I followed his advice, eventually producing my second book, Praying for Restraint: Frequent Flying with an Inner-City Hospital CNA (Legacy Book Press, 2021).
One final comment—I’ve loved visiting zoos and aquariums my whole life, and I’ve raised box turtles, swum with sea turtles, and gone on multiple dolphin- and whale-watching expeditions. Therefore, you may notice that quite a bit of wildlife has crept into my writing. At last count, I spied lions, tigers, giraffes, eland, monkeys, chimps, elephants, alligators, caimans, box turtles, sea turtles, bottlenose dolphins, and humpback whales. Have I missed any?
Find out more about Allen at his great website: hhttp://allenlongauthor.com/
Books
- Less than Human: A Memoir (Black Rose, 2016)
- Praying for Restraint (Legacy Book Press, 2021)
Memoirs
- Alex—Eunoia Review
- A Slow Dance for Tina and Other Love Stories—Eunoia Review
- Baseballs—Adelaide Literary Magazine
- Bring Forth the Guilty—The Copperfield Review
- Capture Hill #49—Adelaide Literary Magazine
- Derelict—Adelaide Literary Magazine
- Freak Out—Verdad
- Free Floating—Eunoia Review
- Hell-Hole Room—Adelaide Literary Award Anthology—Essays—2019
- Homecoming—Literary Brushstrokes
- Joy—Adelaide Literary Magazine
- Learning to Fly—Eunoia Review
- Less Than Human—Eunoia Review
- My Life in Turtles—Hawaii Pacific Review
- Mystery Story—Eunoia Review
- Safe House—Eunoia Review
- Saturdays in Kid Heaven—Scholars & Rogues
- Sleepover—Ray’s Road Review
- Soul Breach—Milk Sugar
- Stuck—Adelaide Literary Award Anthology—Essays—2018
- Zodiac Dreams—Adelaide Voices Award Anthology 2018, Volume Two
Fiction
- Common Ground—Amarillo Bay
- The Poincare Conjecture—49opus
- Second Honeymoon—Concho River Review
Articles
- The Branding Crisis at Wal-Mart—Emory Marketing Institute
- Competitive Intelligence + Market Research = Optimized Market Intelligence—destination CRM
