September Newsletter: Swimming and Writing

Plus A Discount on the Love Escargot Board Book, Updates on Book Bans, A Chance to Win an Escargot Plushie, and the Best Books About Swimming

I am writing this with my nose out of joint, which is an expression that I never really thought about until today but which suddenly feels extremely relatable. This weekend I got punched in the face by a wave (or, more specifically, by the beach itself) while doing something that I love but which also terrifies me: boogie boarding.

Being punched by a wave was not how I had planned to start this missive, which I outlined last week before that high-speed interaction between my nose and the sand. I had planned to write about a night swim I took during last week’s Super Blue Moon, and the ways in which writing and swimming are linked in my mind. It was to be a meditative and lyrical post about the relationship between fear and immersion, and it still will be, except less lyrical now that there has been blood and bruising.

But let’s start with the swimming.

Back in 2020, at the start of the pandemic, I became an open-water swimmer for the simple reason that the pools were closed. I have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than 30 years and had often fantasized about one day living in a beach town where I could swim in the sea every day. Then, during covid, I discovered that I already did. The Bay for which my region is named had been waiting for me all along, like the handsome-but-overlooked guy friend in a romantic comedy.

And like a rom-com heroine, I fell hard for the Bay when I finally noticed it. For two solid years, I could barely talk about anything else. Turns out, I’m not alone. Google “open water swimmer” + “insufferable” and you start pulling up articles like these:

Part of the reason people might hear more than they want about open water swimming these days is that the Venn Diagram of People Who Write and People Who Swim is very close to a perfect circle. When I started swimming in the Bay, I found myself running into writers everywhere I swam. If I didn’t run into them personally, I’d run into their articles, essays, or entire books about the joys of wild swimming (I’ll list a few of my favorite swimming books at the end of this newsletter).

All this swimming/writing overlap seemed uncanny to me at first, and then I realized it made perfect sense for reasons that are very clear to me but also a bit hard to articulate. Something about the link between water and the subconscious. Something about the desire to submerge yourself, to enter a world/voice/narrative in which you are familiar but also a stranger. Something about the daily practice of it, the diving in with no expectation for any outcome other than the experience. Something about the willingness to lose yourself.

And also: the fear. Because one of the things that keeps me swimming in the Bay rather than returning to the routine of the pool is that delectable frisson of alertness that you get when you swim in an environment that has tides, currents, wind, waves, and wild creatures. When I’m swimming in the Pacific, I’m fully present, both in the flow of the activity but also thinking, assessing, adjusting, absorbing, observing. I’m in it but not entirely of it.

Which is what writing should be like, too.

I’ve written about the relationship between writing and fear before, and clearly it’s becoming something of an obsession. There’s a kind of optimum writing zone that is fun but also surprising and a little alarming, where you’re taking controlled risks — experimenting right at the edge of your comfort zone. When I’m in that perfect writing zone, I’m curious about what’s going to happen on the page, a little unsure if what I’m doing is working at all, but having a good enough time to keep going and see where I end up.

And, let’s be honest, sometimes it doesn’t go the way you think it’s going to. Which is what happened to me this weekend at the beach, as I positioned myself in front of a wave that was a little — okay a lot—bigger than I’d been riding all morning.

“This is going to be an amazing ride,” I said to myself as the wave broke behind me.

And then the wave broke over me instead. Inside the wave, I had time to think about what I really didn’t want to happen and also time to think, Well, it’s not really up to me, is it? At last, the wave slammed me face first into the sand. I came up gushing blood from my nose and decided that it might be a good time to get out of the water for a bit before all that blood attracted any unexpected company.

Being of a metaphorical turn of mind, I tried to plug this experience into my whole writing-is-swimming analogy. My extraordinarily profound conclusion was this: Sometimes you ride the wave, and sometimes the wave rides you.

Every writing day is either wonderful or terrible or okay or a little bit of all of it. Either way, I’ll do it again the next day and the next day and the days after that. My nose is a little out of joint, but my love — and fear — of the water remains unaltered.

Love, Escargot Board Book Preorder Deal

Barnes & Noble is offering a 25 percent preorder promotion from Wednesday 9/6 through Friday 9/8 which means you have the chance to preorder the board book of Love, Escargot for everyone you love and receive them in plenty of time for Valentine’s Day. Just use the code PREORDER25 at checkout. Unlike previous preorder sales, this sale is exclusive to B&N members and includes an additional 10% discount for Premium members. Non-members can enroll in the "B&N Rewards" program to participate in this promotion at no cost.

Book Ban Updates

• Students, teachers and parents in Galway, NY beat back an attempt to ban both The 57 Bus and Ink Knows No Borders, a book of poems about immigrant and refugee experiences. The school board had deadlocked 3-3 the previous week, giving those in favor of the freedom to read time to organize. After an overwhelming show of support for both books, the school board voted 6-1 in favor of keeping them.

• A book banning group in Owensboro, Kentucky has presented the Daviess County Library with a list of 248 children’s and young adult books they want removed or restricted, including The 57 Bus. If you’d like to register your support for unfettered access to books for kids and teens, please send an email to Sarah Jacobs, teen librarian: sjacobs@dcplibrary.org.

• A Federal Judge has issued a temporary injunction against a Texas law that would require booksellers to assess and rate the sexual content of every book they sell to schools in the future, or have sold to schools in the past. Plaintiffs include two bookstores, the Authors Guild, the American Booksellers Association, the American Publishing Association, and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

Back To School Sweepstakes: Escargot Plushie

A special bonus for subscribers who read all the way to the bottom of the newsletter. Leave a comment about anything you encountered in this newsletter and be entered in a drawing for a copy of Love Escargot and a huggable Escargot plushie for your home or classroom.

A Few Of My Favorite Books About Swimming

For Kids:

• Jabari Jumps by Gaia Cornwall

• When You Can Swim by Jack Wong

• Pool by Jihyeon Lee

• Plus my own book: The Sea Serpent and Me

For Adults:

• Grayson by Lynn Cox

• Haunts of the Black Masseur by Charles Sprawson

• Swimming Studies by Leann Shapton

• Waterlog by Roger Deakin

And In Case You Don’t Subscribe To My Other Newsletter…

My new nonfiction narrative, Accountable, recently received its fourth starred review. You can learn more about it here.

Thanks for reading all the way to the end.

I bow to you,

Dashka