Nathan Alling Long’s stories and essays appear in over one hundred journals, including Glimmer Train, Tin House, The Sun, Story Quarterly, Crab Orchard Review, Camera Obscura, The Commuter, Witness, Fiction International, and Indiana Review. Their work also appears on NPR and in over a dozen anthologies, including Best Small Fiction 2023, Coolest American Stories 2023, and Best MicroFiction 2020. “Arctic” won the 2015 Open Road Review short story contest, “Reception Theory” won the 2017 OWT fiction contest, “The Hole” won the 2021 Love Reading short fiction award, and “Summer of Joy” won the 2021 flash fiction contest by The Waking. Nathan has also been awarded a Virginia Commission of the Arts grant, a Mellon Foundation Fellowship, scholarships to Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers Conferences, and four Pushcart nominations.
Nathan’s collection of 50 flash fictions, The Origin of Doubt, was published by Press 53 in 2018 and was selected as a finalist for a 2019 Lambda Literary Award.
Nathan has taught creative writing and Literature at various institutions, including Middle Tennessee State U., University of Richmond, and Virginia Union University. They currently are a Professor at Stockton University, where they teaches creative writing; literature; and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
Nathan grew up in a cabin in rural Maryland and studied Literature at the University of Maryland (BA) and Carnegie Mellon (MA); Nathan received an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, where they were the University’s first Truman Capote Literary Scholar. Nathan has hiked in the Himalayas, biked along both U.S. coasts, studied at a Thai monastery, lived on a queer commune in Tennessee, and for ten years cooked for a Buddhist meditation retreat in Oregon.
Nathan now lives in the Germantown area of Philadelphia, PA, in a group house. Their dog Gracie (featured in the “This I Believe” essay found in the “Select Essays” page) passed away in 2011. Elio, an 80 pound border collie-husky-hound mix, rescued Nathan a few years ago and they have become good friends.
Nathan, just wanted to say I really enjoyed meeting you and appreciated the feedback on the opening page of my novel-in-progress Slackwater. I enjoyed our conversation immensely, and after checking out your bio, see that we have some points of commonality beyond the fact I grew up in Md, albeit in St. Mary’s County. I was in the food world for 20 years as a pastry chef and began that out in Boulder, Co, where I spent some time at the Naropa Institute in the 80’s. Hiking and bicycling are passions, and I spent two years at College Park back in the late 70’s. Anyway, just wanted to connect. Hope our paths cross in the future.