A Very Big Fish
The story behind my latest picture book, plus events, giveaways, classes, and more.
A couple of years ago, my agent asked if I would be interested in writing a manuscript based on an illustration. An illustrator represented by Kirsten Hall at Catbird Agency was looking for a story about someone trying to catch a very big fish. Was I interested in writing the narrative?
I was! I love writing prompts, particularly visual ones, and I could picture this narrative almost instantly. I grew up spending my summers in Maine, and so I wrote a story that conjured the briny, close-knit coastal towns of my childhood and the yarn-spinning voice of New England seafaring legends. I wanted to write not only about the enchantment of the sea, but also about the reciprocity of our relationship with it. What is our responsibility to the ocean that nurtures us?
Hall loved the story but didn’t feel it was right for the original illustrator. Instead, she suggested another one of her clients, the incredible Myo Yim. To my great delight, Yim said yes.
When the first sketches arrived, I felt as if Myo had peered inside my head and painted my imagination. Her stunning pastel and pencil illustrations conjure the salty flavor of the New England coastline where I grew up while simultaneously feeling mythic and other-worldly. This is a world that teems with possibility!
The Big One is an adventure story, but it’s also about persistence, environmental stewardship, and the ways in which both the very young and the very old are often dismissed and overlooked. As I say in the book:
Marina was the smallest of the town’s children.
Nana was the oldest of the town’s elders.
But even the old and the small have dreams.
The story begins when word spreads around Marina and Nana’s small fishing village that the Big One is close to shore. The two are certain that, of everyone in town, they will be the ones to land the legendary and elusive fish. “When we catch the Big One,” Nana says, “we’ll need four hands to haul him in and two mouths to tell the story.”
They set out in a tiny boat with only grit, gumption, and a rose-ripe peach for bait. But while they encounter many astonishing things, the Big One doesn’t appear and Marina’s confidence begins to wane. Then one morning, when the mist is so thick they can’t see a thing, something giant nudges the boat.
But it’s not a fish. It’s a whale. A whale who is hopelessly entangled in the lines from all of the town’s fishing boats.
Marine entanglements are a real-life problem. Every year a million tons of fishing gear is abandoned at sea, entangling and endangering 260 different species of animals, including birds, sea turtles, and marine mammals. Plastic debris in the ocean kills more than 100,000 marine mammals annually.
In fact, this week a humpback was found entangled in fishing debris off the coast of Massachusetts. The rescue seems to have been taken straight from the pages of The Big One!
In Myo’s home country of Australia, another entangled whale was rescued on almost the exact same day. The problem is everywhere! I’m hoping that my little book will help raise awareness about the importance of keeping plastic out of the sea and am donating a portion of the proceeds to ocean conservation organizations working on the problem of plastic pollution.
The Big One comes out on June 30. I will be doing two Bay Area events to celebrate:
July 18, 11 am
265 State Street
Los Altos, CA 94022August 23, 2 pm
Book Passage
1 Ferry Building
San Francisco, CA
"A quietly triumphant intergenerational chase story." —Kirkus Reviews
"Via a yarn-spinning voice and pencil and pastel artwork that’s rich in salt-sprayed atmosphere, the creators craft an immersive adventure that’s as bountiful as the sea it celebrates." —Publishers Weekly
"With its evocative language and themes of determination and environmentalism, this observant multigenerational nature story makes a pleasing pick for poetic young adventurers." —Booklist
In Other News…
The Wild Season’s first reviews have been raves!
Animal lovers will relish this honest and inspiring story of a community that rallied to save dumped pets. This triumphant tale belongs on all shelves.
— Library Journal, starred review
A joyful, fact-packed invitation to notice the wild world just outside your door. —Kirkus Reviews
A Goodreads Giveaway of The Wild Season will run from June 19 to July 19. Register for a chance to win one of twenty free copies.
Watch me talk about the book here.
Accountable has been chosen as one of two Common Reader titles by the National English Honor Society.
This month, the faculty at the University of San Francisco’s MFA Program in Writing for Young Readers welcomed our first cohort of students. It’s been amazing. Applications are now open for our second cohort of students, who will be joining us in January. The deadline is September 15 and we will be holding an online information session on August 18 from 5:30-6:30 Pacific Time. There are also a variety of certificate programs for people not quite ready to commit to a full two-year MFA program.
There are now three extremely dangerous book ban bills making their way through Congress. Please contact your senators and representatives to let them know that you’re counting on them to defend the freedom to read!
HR 7661 would amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to prohibit federal funds from being used for any material deemed “sexually oriented.” Buried within that definition is language that defines that to mean any material that “involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism.”
HR 8705 blocks federal funding for American History and Civics Education from being used to promote what it calls “discriminatory equity ideology” or “gender ideology,” definitions drawn from a January 29, 2025 executive order. Authors Against Book Bans explain that the bill’s “likely impacts would include fewer books on racism and civil rights, less discussion of sexism and inequality, narrower civics curricula, and publishers pulling back on diverse perspectives.”
HR 2616 has already passed the House, and has been introduced to a Senate committee. Authors Against Book Bans explains that it would “withhold ESEA funding from schools that ‘teach or advance concepts related to gender ideology,’” representing “another attempt to eliminate not only trans and nonbinary books, but also any acknowledgment of gender non‑conforming people in public education.”
Please call your senators and tell them to oppose HR2616. Click here to find the phone numbers for your senators’ offices. Please call your representative and ask them to oppose HR 8705 and HR 7661. Click here to find the phone number of your representative’s office.
I Bow To You,
Dashka