Para cycling champion Hannah Pascoe is swapping her tandem bike for a typewriter.
The Invercargill mother and retired athlete will launch her debut novel at the city library on June 20, capping off a writing project 26 years in the making.
Falling Amidst Waves, Book One is the first of a three-book romance series that Pascoe started writing as a young woman and finally polished into publication.
Pascoe, who represented New Zealand as a tandem cyclist and was the first blind woman to ride from Cape Reinga to Bluff, had kept her manuscripts largely to herself until husband Nick encouraged her to dust them off.
"He read a draft, and genuinely thought it wasn't crap. He is totally the type to tell me straight up. He was surprised that I'd written a book. I pointed out that I have an endurance mind, so of course I did," Pascoe said.
"Hubby's a good writer himself and offered to be one of my main editors. He's the first person who's read any of my stuff and gave me the courage to consider publishing."
Pascoe was born with congenital glaucoma and became totally blind by 25. A talk to the Southland Women's Club at the start of 2025 energised her to revisit her old work.
"I ducked into one of my series and went 'wow, after all these years it's still a good story'. Young me had great ideas, but sat on a raw skill that needed refining to help make it to the next level."
Getting the series ready took a year of polishing and multiple rounds of editing.
"I finished my first draft of the entire series in 2006 and I have spent this last year polishing. I've had to do a lot of work on the other two books also to make sure there are no plot holes left in book one," Pascoe said.
"For the writing to improve, you need as many eyes as possible but that proved harder than I thought it would be. I was fortunate enough to have a small handful between legit paid readers, volunteers and editors. Thanks to that feedback it improved each time it went through a round of edits. My editor from the States, who is also a published author, shared that the process of editing can be quite humbling and yeah, she was right."
Sharing her work proved challenging.
"Having someone read your book and give feedback is like having the most sensitive part of your brain poked at. I've had this story and these characters in my brain for years and having it discussed verbally is uncomfortable as hell," Pascoe said.
But the process reconnected her with her younger self.
"Young me meets current me and together we've used different parts of our knowledge to finally finish what we started. When I was young I dreamt of publishing my stories but never thought it was possible, so I put it aside," Pascoe said.
"My young self would be freaking ecstatic right now. When transitioning out of the sporting world, I had worried about what my next goal was going to be, and thanks to the Southland Women's Club, my original dream found me."
Book One launches at Invercargill City Library at 11am on June 20, with copies available for purchase. It will also be available as an e-book through Apple Books, Amazon, and other platforms.
"I'm also working on making sure it's made available in accessible formats for blind and low vision readers. Audiobook is proving to be the tricky one because of the cost involved in producing it," Pascoe said.
Some proceeds will go to the Chasing Dreams fund Pascoe started to support blind and low vision athletes.