Last year Peter Mallory and Rebecca Caroe collated and edited a collection of stories from rowers and about rowing. We published it as Rowing Tales.
It has had great reviews and lots of you kind people have purchased copies – usually in twos (one for you and one for a friend). Thank you.
We’re going to do another edition. Rowing Tales 2018.
Would you like to write your rowing story for us?
Here’s Peter Mallory’s invitation
Last year, my good friend Rebecca Caroe of RowperfectUK asked me to solicit and edit a collection of favorite rowing stories from members of our rowing family, famous and not famous, from around the world. She called it Rowing Tales. Besides being a challenging editing project, the kind of task an old classmate of mine calls “brain food”, keeping those synapses firing in good order, it was a success for Rebecca and great fun for me.
Some of the 2017 stories come from literature, from Dickens and Melville, others from giants of the rowing past, Steve Fairbairn and George Pocock, some from Olympians, others from the most ordinary among us. Some are sublime, some ridiculous, some inspirational, others comical, some cautionary tales, others just a slice of life, the memory of an ordinary day made extraordinary by messing about in boats.
After 2017, Rebecca hopes to make this an annual thing. Now I am contacting you to ask you to contribute a story of your own for consideration in 2018. Maybe something you have told many times around the metaphorical campfire, maybe something you have never before shared, a story that has been aching to get out for decades.
It can be a tribute to a memorable coach or mentor, a worthy opponent, a good friend or teammate, an “if only” kind of story, a “you couldn’t make this stuff up” kind of story, a story of triumph or sorrow or hope or despair, of dreams fulfilled or unfulfilled, a story to make you laugh or cry, a poem, a haiku. Make it as short as you like . . . but not too long, no more than a couple of thousand words.
You can submit your story in writing, a finished piece . . . or a rough draft for us to collaborate on. If necessary, I can translate into English from French, Italian or German. One 2017 author brainstormed with me over the phone from Europe for more than an hour. He so wanted to submit something but had no idea where to start, not even sure he had anything memorable to say. I transcribed our rambling conversation and sent him back a very touching story I had unearthed deep between the lines of his musings. He was both surprised and proud, and I was proud as well to have such a kind and thoughtful friend.
I consider you a friend, and I know you have stories to tell. Let’s do this.
The Deadline for Rowing Tales submissions is 1 September 2018.
