The Draw of the Sea

Booker Prize nominated author Wyl Menmuir will be discussing his new book, 'The Draw of the Sea'.

‘A beautiful portrait of lives shaped by the swell of ocean and tide – a powerful salt-thread of connection’ – Raynor Winn, author of ‘The Salt Path’.

The Booker Prize-nominated author Wyl Menmuir will be discussing his new work of non-fiction, ‘The Draw of the Sea’, with Shrew Books at North Street Kitchen in Fowey.

Wyl lives in Cornwall, and is co-creator of the Cornish writing centre, The Writers’ Block, and works with Arvon Foundation, National Literacy Trust and Centre for Literacy in Primary Education on national literacy programmes, as well as a lecturer in creative writing at Falmouth University. The Draw of the Sea is a beautifully-written meditation on what it is that draws us to the waters’ edge, telling the stories of the people whose lives revolve around the sea in the Cornish community where Wyl lives.

Since the earliest stages of human development, the sea has fascinated and entranced us. It feeds us, sustaining communities and providing livelihoods, but it also holds immense destructive power which can take all those away in an instant. It connects us to faraway places, offering the promise of new lands and voyages of discovery, but also shapes our borders, carving divisions between landmasses and eroding the very ground beneath our feet.

In ‘The Draw of the Sea’, Wyl explores the lives of local fishermen steeped in the rich traditions of a fishing community, the beachcombers who wander the shores in search of the varied objects which wash ashore and the stories they tell, and all number of others who have made their lives on the beautiful Cornwall coast.