Diana Nyad Popular Books

Diana Nyad Biography & Facts

Diana Nyad (née Sneed; born August 22, 1949) is an American author, journalist, motivational speaker, and long-distance swimmer. Nyad gained national attention in 1975 when she swam around Manhattan (28 mi or 45 km) in record time, and in 1979 when she swam from Bimini, The Bahamas, to Juno Beach, Florida (102 mi or 164 km). She has written four books and articles for various publications, hosted the public radio program The Savvy Traveler, appeared on the television shows CBS News Sunday Morning and Dancing with the Stars, and been a long-time contributor to the public radio programs All Things Considered and Marketplace. In 2013, on her fifth attempt and at age 64, she swam from Havana, Cuba, to Key West, Florida, a journey of 110 mi (180 km), allegedly completing the third known swim crossing of the Florida Straits after Walter Poenisch in 1978 and Susie Maroney in 1997. Both of those earlier efforts involved a shark cage and, in Poenisch's case, fins and several short rests on his escort craft. Nyad used a protective jellyfish suit, shark divers, and electronic shark repellent devices, and claimed to have achieved an "unassisted" swim. Her crossing from Cuba to Florida was not conducted under the supervision of an organized sporting association, and ratification of the accomplishment was later denied by the World Open Water Swimming Association (WOWSA) for various reasons including incomplete observer logs with a 9-hour undocumented gap in observations, conflicting crew reports, nearly a decade of delay in providing documentation to seek formal ratification, dubious claims about the rules followed for the swim, and "backdated and falsified documentation". Guinness World Records initially certified Nyad's achievement, but revoked its certification after considering the findings by WOWSA. Her 2013 swim and partnership with athlete and businesswoman Bonnie Stoll were dramatized in the 2023 film Nyad, based on her 2015 memoir Find a Way. Early life and education Nyad was born in New York City on August 22, 1949, to Lucy Winslow Curtis (1925–2007) and stockbroker William L. Sneed Jr. Her mother was a great-granddaughter of Charlotte N. Winslow, the inventor of Mrs Winslow's Soothing Syrup, a popular morphine-based medicine for children's teething pain that was manufactured from 1849 until the 1930s. She is also a great-grandniece of women's-rights activist Laura Curtis Bullard. The Sneeds divorced in 1952, after which Lucy Sneed married a man known as Aristotle Z. Nyad, who later was revealed to be Aris Notaras, an individual with multiple aliases. Notaras, who had a complex history involving legal issues and a conviction for smuggling, adopted Diana following the marriage. The family moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where she began swimming seriously in seventh grade. She was enrolled at the private Pine Crest School in the mid-1960s, swimming under the tutelage of Olympian and Hall of Fame coach Jack Nelson who, she has said, molested her beginning when she was age 14 and continued until she graduated from high school. She has also said she learned several years later that another girl who trained under Nelson had also been molested, and said the two of them had brought their accusation to the headmaster of the school, but that no clear action was taken and Nelson resigned at the end of that school year. She won two Florida state high school championships in the backstroke at 100 yards. She dreamed of swimming in the 1968 Summer Olympics, but in 1966 she spent three months in bed with endocarditis, an infection of the heart, and when she began swimming again she had lost speed. After graduating from Pine Crest School in 1967, she entered Emory University, but was expelled for jumping out a fourth-floor dormitory window wearing a parachute. She then enrolled at Lake Forest College in Illinois, where she resumed swimming, concentrating on distance events. She soon came to the attention of Buck Dawson, director of the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Florida, who introduced her to marathon swimming. She began training at his Girl's Camp "Camp Ak-O-Mak" in Magnetawan, Ontario and set a women's course record of 4 hours and 23 minutes in her first race, a 10-mile (16 km) swim in Lake Ontario in July 1970, finishing 10th overall. After graduating from Lake Forest College in 1973 with a degree in English and French, Nyad then enrolled in a PhD program for Comparative Literature at New York University in 1973 and also pursued her marathon swimming career. Career Nyad has written four books: Other Shores (1978) about her life and distance swimming, Basic Training for Women (1981) describing a physical fitness program for women, Boss of Me: The Keyshawn Johnson Story (1999) about NFL wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson, and Find a Way (2015) about her quest to swim across the Florida Straits. She has also written for The New York Times, Newsweek, and other publications. Nyad and former professional racquetball player Bonnie Stoll formed a company called BravaBody which is aimed at providing online exercise advice to women over 40. Nyad succeeded Rudy Maxa as host of the public radio program The Savvy Traveler, produced by Minnesota Public Radio, in July 2001 and remained host until the show ended in 2004. Nyad was the subject of a short documentary "Diana" by the digital channel WIGS in 2012. As of 2006, she was a (long-time) weekly contributor to the National Public Radio afternoon news show All Things Considered (appearing on Thursdays), as well as the "business of sport" commentator for the American Public Media public radio program Marketplace business news. She was also a regular contributor to the CBS News television show Sunday Morning. An analysis of Nyad's ability to dissociate during her marathon swims was covered by James W. Pipkin. The documentary film The Other Shore was released in early 2013, some months before Nyad's swim from Cuba to Florida. In her 1978 autobiography, Nyad described marathon swimming as a battle for survival against a brutal foe—the sea—and the only victory possible is to "touch the other shore". Squash Nyad played in the 1979 Women's World Open Squash Championship, where she lost in the first round to Swedish player Katarina Due-Boje. The same year, she was part of U.S. national team at the World Team Championships. They finished, without winning a match, as 6th. Distance swimming in the 1970s 1974: In June 1974, Nyad set a women's record of 8 hours, 11 minutes in a 22-mile (35 km) race in the Gulf of Naples. 1975: At age 26, Nyad swam 28 miles (45 km) around the island of Manhattan (New York City) in just under 8 hours (7 hours 57 minutes), breaking a 48-year-old record (unofficial, set by Byron Sommers in 1927). An account of her swim in the New York Times, published the next day, said Nyad was 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 m) tall and weighed 128 pounds (58 kg). 1978: At age 28 she first attempted to swim from Havana, Cuba to Key W.... Discover the Diana Nyad popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Diana Nyad books.