Finding glimmers: Megan Hayes on healing through wild swimming

Researcher, writer and relentless optimist Megan Hayes is author of five books. Her newest, ‘Glimmering: Healing in 21 Wild Swims’ shares her journey of self-discovery through swimming

Tell us about your new book and why we will love it?

Glimmering: Healing in 21 Wild Swims is a journey of selfdiscovery told in a series of swims-across-the-page: a lyrical, haunting-yet-hopeful memoir about complex trauma and the restorative, redemptive power of our experiences in nature. My hope is that readers who sometimes feel a little lost will enjoy seeking solace and finding resilience with me in the wild waters of Wales and beyond.

What is your relationship with swimming?

I’ve always been drawn to water and especially wild water. There’s a peacefulness to swimming that has always felt essential to my living, even before I could articulate it as I have in the book. I’ve realised water is one of the most reliable ways for me to experience glimmers – a term coined by Deb Dana for those moments of safety, connection, and joy that soothe the nervous system. I was privileged enough to travel quite a bit in my 20s and would find water at any opportunity, which the book charts. I think swimming – apart from my other love: writing – is what keeps me sane, keeps me nourished, and I would say ‘grounded’ but it’s the opposite, isn’t it? It keeps me watered.

How does swimming inspire your writing?

Something clicked in my practice when I began writing about swimming. There was a uniquely sensory, vivid voice I was able to access that I hadn’t before. I think because swimming has been such a deep form of my self-knowledge, of belonging at once to myself and to something so much larger than myself. Writing Glimmering has helped me go some way towards verbalising that belonging, which is embodied and therefore somewhat beyond words. It’s been a genuinely transformative project.

Where is your favourite place to swim?

I’ve recently discovered a new favourite spot: Sharrah Pool along the River Dart. Few places I’ve swum can match its beautifully wild and secluded setting. I can’t wait to get back there.

Can you tell us about the next project?

Book ideas often arrive in the form of a question. Having lost my father to cancer during the process of publishing my first memoir, I’ve been left with that awful question: how do I grieve him? I’m not totally sure I’m getting grief ‘right’ – but I do know that writing has always been my way of processing the things that happen. Since this loss, my perspective has shifted quite radically, which I’m sure will resonate with anyone who has lost someone dear. It’s like you’re part of a new, awful club. I see grief everywhere now, from individual losses to our collective grief for this precious planet we share and the destruction of its climate, evidenced by the recent heatwaves. Grief in all its forms – how we live through it and become more ourselves beside it – is what I’d like to explore in my next project.