Home

Hi, I'm Sarah Beth Long.

In the fall of 2019, I received an email that started like this: “You don’t know me, but I think we might be sisters.” Thus began the conclusion to a decades-long search to find and reunite with my birth mother and biological family.

I yearned for answers and the self-transformation I was certain those answers would inspire. But as I prepared to embark on that Odyssean journey, COVID-19 hit. Then, my fiancé left. Then, I was forced to sell my beloved farm. And when I finally landed on the shores of that island of promised transformation, when I found my birthmother and our brother, within nine months, I'd lose them again to alcoholism and illness. My birthmother was 62. My baby brother, 23.

That would be a lot for anyone to endure, but it was especially difficult for someone with a recently diagnosed mood disorder to manage. One night, I found myself collapsed onto the shower floor, impervious to the frigid water pouring over my body, exhausted and debilitated by carrying the weight of unresolved complex post-traumatic stress for decades.

In that dark moment, instead of picking up a weapon that could end my life, I picked up the pen that saved it.

What poured onto the page wasn't pretty or polished. It was raw and bilious. At times what came out was shocking, sometimes mortifying, other times prescient and surprisingly wise–all of it true. Within the privacy and safety of the page, I could speak the unspeakable, I could get real, and if I could stay real, then I had a shot at being whole and healthy again.

Two years later, those messy pages of confession, confusion, memory and discovery became the book Uprooted: A Memoir of Belonging and Becoming, forthcoming from Regal House Publishing and shortlisted for the prestigious Bridport Prize.

Publishing the memoir is the pinnacle achievement of my writing life thus far but even so, something nagged at me. It wasn't enough that writing had saved me. I often found myself spooning the froth of a latte or hiking the back woods and wondering could this process help others?

Indeed it could. Now, as a writer, professor of writing, and therapeutic writing consultant, I teach the skills, hold space for, and facilitate similar transformations and recoveries using science-backed, evidence-based narrative medicine and therapeutic writing methodologies, a dose of hard-won wisdom, and a healthy pinch of irreverent humor.

In his memoir A Moveable Feast, Hemmingway urged the reluctant narrator to "write one true sentence. The truest sentence you know."

Mine was: "I want to live."

What's yours?

Order an Advanced Review Copy of "Uprooted"

$20.00

What is an ARC?

An Advanced Review Copy (ARC) is a pre-publication edition sent to reviewers, booksellers, book clubs, and media outlets to generate early reviews and word-of-mouth before a book's official release. ARCs are typically paperback with a simple cover design and may contain minor errors that will be corrected in the final edition—they're working copies, not collector's items. If you're a reviewer or media professional interested in reviewing Uprooted, please request a FREE ARC by sending an email to sbhopton@gmail.com.

If you're a reader who can't wait for publication and would like to purchase an ARC – understanding you can not quote from, sell to or otherwise redistribute the book – you can purchase one at the Buy Now link above.

Pre-Publication Book Circle

Join the Inner Circle

The Uprooted Inner Circle: Pre-Launch Book Promotion Club

Join a small community of early readers and champions helping bring Uprooted into the world. As a member, you'll get exclusive access to the book before anyone else—and play a vital role in building buzz before publication.

What you'll receive:

Early chapter previews and behind-the-scenes glimpses into the memoir's creation
A free Advanced Review Copy (ARC) before the publication date
Invitations to virtual Q&As and intimate conversations about the book's themes
Book swag

What you'll help with:

Posting an honest review on Amazon, Goodreads, and/or Bookshop.org during launch week
Sharing about the book on social media with your book club or within your community
Spreading word-of-mouth to friends, colleagues, and local bookstores
Serving as a point of contact for other social media or in-person opportunities in your community

No experience necessary—just enthusiasm for the genre of memoir, writing, healing, or the themes of adoption/reunion, sustainable farming/climate change, and mental health. This is a free community built on reciprocity: you help launch the book and I'll offer you early access, connection, and an abundant gratitude.

Every book needs believers before it has readers.

Join the Inner Circle for early access to Uprooted, behind-the-scenes content, and a chance to help generate buzz and create community around the launch of a memoir about losing and finding yourself, your purpose, and your people.

I want to help!

Praise for "Uprooted"

"I’ve long marveled at S.B. Long’s unsurpassed gift for narrative, brilliantly displayed in her extraordinary new memoir, Uprooted, a tale as powerfully and imaginatively rendered as the very best fiction. Harrowing, heartbreaking, unimaginably candid, often outrageous, and ultimately triumphant, Uprooted does not relax its spell and frisson until its final remarkable sentence. This is a courageous, necessary book by a master storyteller.

Joseph Bathanti, North Carolina Poet Laureate (2012-2014) & author of Too Glorious to Even Long for on Certain Days

Pre-Order Uprooted

Everything comes from the earth; everything returns to it. In Uprooted, her gorgeous and unflinching memoir of adoption, identity, and heal- ing, Sarah Beth Long digs to reclaim the past all the while tending the soil out of which a new self might emerge. Against the backdrop of sustainable farming in North Carolina and a newly discovered birth family in rural Tennessee, Long weaves a raw, lyrical journey through trauma, resilience, and the search for belonging. Uprooted is a story of fierce honesty and mythic resonance, and, above all else, a story of transformation.

Mark Powell, author of The Late Rebellion

Uprooted is a compelling meditation on families—those we are born into, those that choose us, and those we create ourselves. With fierce honesty, this memoir investigates complex and even contradictory rela- tionships between mothers and daughters. Beautiful and heartbreaking by turns, S. B. Long invites readers to experience her loss and longing, and ultimately the joy of finding a place and people to call her own.

Zackary Vernon, author of Our Bodies Electric

View Services

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

Maya Angelou

Workshops, Coaching, and Community Services

Customized curriculum based on organizational or individual needs backed by the latest research and neuroscience of therapeutic writing and narrative medicine.

Healthcare Professionals

Narrative Medicine for the Frontlines

Workshops and training for medical professionals, caregivers, and care teams designed to restore empathy, combat compassion fatigue, and deepen patient connection. Through close reading, reflective writing, and shared reflection, participants rediscover why they entered healthcare—and build resilience to stay. Customized for your organization, on-site or virtual.

Learn more here.

Individual Coaching

The Page as Medicine

One-on-one trauma-informed coaching for those ready to write their way toward healing, clarity, or craft. Whether you're processing grief, navigating a life transition, or developing a memoir, we'll work together using evidence-based expressive writing methods tailored to your goals. Sessions available on-farm or virtually.

Learn more here.

Community & Groups

Writing Circles, Book Club & Narrative Medicine Groups

Intimate, facilitated gatherings for those seeking connection through story. Through close reading, reflective writing, and mindfulness practices, participants find language for what's been hard to say—and witness for what's been hard to carry. Ideal for support groups, book clubs, and communities navigating shared experiences. Held on-farm or virtually.

Learn more here.

change your story, change your life

So glad you're here.

I spent decades studying how language works. Then life handed me a curriculum I hadn't planned: the death of a birth mother I'd never meet, a broken engagement, a bipolar II diagnosis, and a farm I'd have to leave. Writing was the center that held. Now I bring that same practice to others: evidence-based, trauma-informed, and rooted in the belief that telling our stories changes us at the cellular level.

I hold a Ph.D in Composition & Rhetoric from the University of South Florida (Tampa, Florida); an M.A. in both Literature and Creative Writing from Mercy College (Dobbs Ferry, NY) and Lancaster University (Lancaster, United Kingdom), and an undergraduate degree in Journalism from Florida Southern (Lakeland, Florida).

I am a professor at Appalachian State University and have taught courses and workshops in Narrative Medicine, basic and advanced writing, and creative nonfiction and have spent over a decade developing innovative curricula and conducting mixed-methods research at the intersections of environmental and food justice, narrative medicine and traditional and trauma-informed writing instruction. I have over 20 scholarly and creative publications to my name.

Additionally, I am finishing a 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training certification accredited by the Yoga Alliance and am trained in the Arenas for Change "Seen through Story" methodology, which integrates equines and the environment into therapeutic settings. I am a member of the Narrative Mindworks, the leading international narrative practices association and an avid meditator who uses aspects of mindfulness in my work with others.

All of my services are available virtually but for those who want face-to-face consulting or would benefit from a nature-based writing environment, you are invited to my 13-acre care farm in East Tennessee. On the farm I am able to utilize principles from horticultural and equine-assisted modalities to further enhance outcomes for my clients, but interaction with the animals or plants is strictly optional. I also partner with several local integrative medicine practitioners coming from traditional and nontraditional medical paradigms and Wise Woman traditions.

Ready to get started?

No spam. No irrelevant content. No pushy promotions. Just friendly check-ins to see how you're holding up and tell you about what's going on.

Stories heal. Writing saves lives. I know–because it saved mine.

Hi, I'm Sarah Beth Long.

Order an Advanced Review Copy of "Uprooted"

Pre-Publication Book Circle

Join the Inner Circle

Every book needs believers before it has readers.

Praise for "Uprooted"

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

Workshops, Coaching, and Community Services

Healthcare Professionals

Individual Coaching

Community & Groups

change your story, change your life

So glad you're here.

Partners

Stories heal. Writing saves lives. I know–because it saved mine.

Hi, I'm Sarah Beth Long.

Order an Advanced Review Copy of "Uprooted"

Pre-Publication Book Circle

Join the Inner Circle

Every book needs believers before it has readers.

Praise for "Uprooted"

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

Workshops, Coaching, and Community Services

Healthcare Professionals

Individual Coaching

Community & Groups

change your story, change your life

So glad you're here.

Ready to get started?

Partners

This website uses cookies.