Scull School
Danielle Battaglia started rowing on the Christina River about 25 years ago, a couple years after she retired at age 50 and was looking for a way to get some exercise. During that time, she also made new friends and ended up in the muddy tidal water more than once. In her humorous book, “Out of My Scull,” (available at Huxley & Hiro), she shares technical information as well as her misadventures. Here, she gives us a sneak peek.
DT: What kind of boats do you use?
At the Wilmington Rowing Center, I row in a single scull and also in a quad with three other women. We range in height from 5 feet to 5 feet, 10 inches.
Who is the book’s target audience?
Primarily women over 50 who are looking for a good way to exercise. But I’ve gotten comments from rowers of all ages who have had similar experiences rowing, as well as questions from people who are curious about rowing.
How does someone get into rowing?
The center wants to first see if people are flexible and stable enough to row, so they have a six-day beginners class before you can join.
The book has lots of personal stories. Can you share an anecdote?
One time, the four of us in the quad overturned in the Christina River and had to be rescued. It was hilarious—but also scary with the muddy bottom and stuff floating by under water!
Why did you write the book now, at age 77?
I heard this podcast that said we only live about 4,000 weeks. I figured if I was ever going to write it, it’s about time.
Novel Idea
Working for years as a software developer and health care strategist, Delaware native Gina Marie Wilson gained a lot of hightech experience, which she used to start a business as an executive coach and to author two nonfiction books geared toward helping others make progress in their careers.
But Wilson still had more wisdom she wanted to impart. “I felt that the best way to really share with women how to deal with the obstacles they face in business was to write a novel about it,” she says. “It took me years and several drafts to do it.”
Published by Bayfront Press, “Silicon Valley East” (available at Hockessin BookShelf, Browseabout Books, and Bethany Beach Books) was inspired by former President Reagan’s 1985 speech at the Great Valley Corporate Center in Malvern, where he extolled the Route 202 corridor as the Silicon Valley of the East; the novel’s heroine, Christina Como, witnesses and is inspired by this same speech.
The book is in three parts, each a segment of Como’s progress, “roughly covering the years 1973 through 1985,” Wilson says. It begins in Como’s college years and describes the difficulties she faced as a woman in the male-dominated engineering field. Like all good novelists, Wilson draws on her own experiences, creating characters that are an amalgam of people she has met along the way.
“I will be writing more fiction,” Wilson says. “I love the feeling of telling a story.”
