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• Weston Lit Fest: Why Women Swim

Weston Lit Fest: Why Women Swim

Join Ella Foote, editor of ‘Outdoor Swimmer’ magazine, instigator of Dip Advisor, and author of forthcoming publication ‘How to Wild Swim’, in conversation with fellow writer-swimmers Freya Bromley, Jenny Landreth and Catherine Joy White.

Freya Bromley decided to swim every tidal pool in Britain as a way to fill the empty space her brother’s death left behind.  ‘The Tidal Year’ is a true story about the healing power of wild swimming and the space it creates for reflection, rewilding and hope.

Jenny Landreth‘s ‘SWELL: A Waterbiography’, winner of the Sunday Times Sport Book of the Year in 2017, is a funny and bold account, part social history and part memoir,  of how women fought their way into the water and what they did once they got there. A joyful hymn to our swimming foremothers.

Cat White, who was recently named on Forbes 30 Under 30 list, is a writer, actor, film maker, gender advisor for the United Nations and founder of Kusini Productions. Her first book ‘This Thread of Gold: A Celebration of Black Womanhood’ published in June 2023 to high acclaim. Cat’s film ‘Fifty-Four Day’s follows the journey of a girl who starts swimming in the wake of losing her father to suicide, echoing elements of Cat’s own experience and her love of the “holy place” of wild swimming.

“..blissful… an instructive history of a tide not simply turning, but being forced to turn:” The Times on ‘SWELL: A Waterbiography’.

“Immersive and compelling.  I read in a single day! Everyone should take a plunge into this book:” Cathy Renzenbrink on ‘The Tidal Year’.

“Cat has a formidable voice and shines light and nuance to the Black womxn experience.”  Sharmaine Lovegrove

Weston Lit Fest is produced in partnership with Weston-super-Mare Town Council and The Write Box.