Episode 58: Water Books with Freya Bromley, Alycia Pirmohamed and Mollie Hughes
Let’s fill our shelves and stockings with water books and speak to the authors who wrote them.
In this episode, we speak to Freya Bromley, host of The Tidal Year podcast, Alycia Pirmohamed, a poet shortlisted for the Nan-Sheperd Prize, and Mollie Hughes, world record-holding adventurer extraordinaire, about their latest books.
All three authors tell me about their journeys as writers, how they draw inspiration from water and what we can expect from their books.
Shop all water books from my shop on Bookshop.org and support local, independent bookshops with every order.
Meet our Guests
Freya Bromley
Freya Bromley is a writer and wild swimmer based in London. She is the host of The Tidal Year, a podcast about the joy of swimming and the human stories of why we swim.
Her book The Tidal Year came out in 2023 and it tells Freya’s own personal story about the healing power of wild swimming in Britain’s tidal pools, some of which are of course in Scotland.
Read Freya’s piece about swimming in Scotland’s tidal pools for Conde Nast Traveler and check out her website. Connect with Freya on Instagram @freyabromley.
Alycia Pirmohamed
Alycia Pirmohamed is a Canadian-born poet who’s based in Scotland. She is the co-founder of the Scottish BPOC Writer’s Network, teaches at the University of Cambridge, and has won many awards with her poetry, including the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize and the 2020 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award.
In 2022, Alycia published her debut collection Another Way to Split Water with Polygon Books and in 2023 she won the Nan Shepherd Prize for underrepresented voices in nature writing.
Check out Alycia’s Substack and her website. Connect with Alycia on Instagram @alyciap_.
The three pamphlets Alycia mentions in our conversations are Tapping At Glass by Tim Tim Cheng, Nemidoonam by Nasim Rebecca Asl, and Bird Cherry by Roshni Gallagher, and they’re all published with Verve Poetry Press.
Mollie Hughes
Mollie Hughes is a world record-holding mountaineer, adventurer and motivational speaker based in Edinburgh. At the age of 26, she became the youngest woman in the world and the first English woman to successfully summit Mount Everest from both the north and south sides. And less than three years later, she became the youngest woman in the world to ski solo from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole.
Her book Blue Scotland is an adventure bible for anyone who’s looking to explore Scotland’s waterways by swimming, paddleboarding, kayaking or surfing. Mollie is also the Director of Ocean Vertical, an ethical outdoor company in Dunbar.
Check out Mollie’s website and connect with her on Instagram @molliejhughes.
More Water Books for your Reading List
- Celtic Sea Stories: A collection of folklore, myths and legends collected all over the Scottish coastline, brought together by George W Macpherson.
- Antlers of Water: A collection of essays on nature and the environment of Scotland, edited by Kathleen Jamie and with contributions from Amy Liptrot, Chitra Ramaswamy and many more.
- Paddle Scotland: A guidebook to the best places to go paddleboarding, kayaking and canoeing in Scotland by Alasdair Findlay, owner of Glasgow Paddleboarders Co.
- The Seaweed Collector’s Handbook: A lyrical deep dive into the wonderful world of seaweed and how to collect it, by Mull-based artist Miek Zwamborn.
- 1001 Outdoor Swimming Tips: A practical handbook for outdoor swimmers by Calum Maclean.
- Swimming with Seals: A contemplative memoir about swimming daily on a beach in Orkney that started as a series of thoughtful Facebook posts, by Victoria Whitworth.
- The Flow: Winner of the 2023 Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing – a book about rivers, wild waters and journeys of grief.
- Life Between the Tides: An experimental exploration of Scottish rock pools and the species that live in them, by Adam Nicolson.
- Spirals in Time: A (somewhat surprisingly) fascinating deep dive into the lives of molluscs, sea shells and nudibranches, and their role in climate, history and mythology, by Helen Scales.
- Bringing Back the Beaver: An inspiring read about the long process of reintroducing beavers into the waterways of Britain, by Derek Gow.
- Into the Peatlands: A thoughtful exploration of a Scottish peat bog throughout the seasons, by Robin Crawford.
Find all these water books and more on my Water Books List on bookshop.org.
Helloo! I’ve become a Patreon supporter and do not quite understand how to achieve the little ‘extras’ offered as a supporter. Point me in the right direction please. Thank you for all!
Hi Kathleen, the bonus episodes are only available to the £6/month tier and are usually published straight to Patreon towards the end of the month. If that’s the tier you’re in, you should be able to see all my past posts to my Patreon page containing those audio files. I’m away without my laptop and the Patreon app on my phone won’t let me see membership details very clearly, but if you send an email to hello@wildforscotland.com with the name/email address you used to sign up for Patreon, I’ll look into it for you when I’m back!! Kathi