Big wave surfer Maya Gabeira joins Cheddar News to discuss her new picture book, 'Maya and The Beast.' She also dishes on whether or not she'd like to see her books come to life on the big screen for television or film.

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Surfer Maya Gabeira Talks New Picture Book 'Maya and The Beast'

and that doesn't really incredible to see that, that was professional surfer and two time world record holder Maya Gabeira, the surfing legend, made a name for herself after surfing the biggest wave ever by a woman and then broke her own record in 2020 by serving the biggest wave of the year by both male or female by the way, that wave 73 a half, she was also featured in the Hit HBO max documentary, 100 ft wave and is currently taking a break right here in new york city for a few days training before she hits the next big way for the next season. And guess what? The surfer joining us now is here First I have to ask you how's training going? Um it's good. I haven't really ramped it up for the season yet. My season starts in october so I'm slowly, you have a little time. So that video we saw, I mean you nearly died attempting some of these waves. I mean three surgeries, six years of rehab, that goes into all of this, What challenges, going to training, especially when you're preparing for something as big as that. Oh, a lot of years, a lot of dedication, a lot of overcoming, you know, may it be injuries or traumas, but in the end of the day is what I love to do and you know, once you ride a wave like that, everything just becomes so small, how do you mentally prepare for something like that, Like what goes into preparing that years years of being out in a big ocean and becoming somewhat comfortable with that force of nature and understanding and learning how to go with it because you're never fighting it, you're never going out and winning her, you know that nature is the winner always. So you're just trying to survive it almost survive it and and take the experience with you. You have a new book coming out calling called Maya and I love that. Tell me more about what inspired you to write this book. Um well I never thought about writing a book, but the pandemic hit and I was walking a lot with my dogs which are on the cover and those are your dogs that are on the cover of course not and stormy and uh and we were always, you know, in the forest walking hiking, we could, I couldn't travel, couldn't do anything and then I thought, well I should take this time to establish some new goals. And one of them was a Children's book and the name came to mind the Beast. The title came to my head and one of my walks and then a huge process started off what goes into writing a Children's book, you know, which is two years later, which is more difficult, mastering these giant waves of writing a Children's book because I've had friends that have written Children's book and they're like, it is not an easy thing, No, it's not an easy thing, it's super challenging. Um both are extremely challenging. The main difference for me is that one is life threatening and the other one I get to sleep on it and change a few words the next day or you know, maybe they won't sell is gonna be such a success, but a bad day in the Office on one is very critical and the other one, you can always fix something. You've also secured a deal with Abrams Children's books for two pictures, stories and a young adult memoir. You are very busy. What ideas do you have for your next book? Especially the young adult one, They're all written, wow, did you do that during the pandemic? You wrote a very productive pandemic. What can people expect from those stories in those books? The young adult is a bunch of memories about, you know, from when I was a teenager, when I discovered the sport when I left home, I left brazil very young, I was 15 and how I survived abroad alone, learned a second language and thrived in a very male dominated sport and struggled with anxiety and never really got um told that I had an anxiety disorder. So there's a bunch of stories that you know, I'm struggling and I don't know what I have and then read it later in my life, I was able to realize that I had something and I had to be treated for it and probably intensified because of, you know, the stress and the risk of my job and the fact that I was a lot alone and traveling alone and doing things alone. So it's a bunch of tales put together. Do you think that you can make these into like shows? We've seen like HBO max and netflix have really been able to develop young adult and Children's novels into amazing sort of content and they do really well and they do really, really well. Is that something that you would love to see these turn into? I would love to see Mind the Beast turned into something animation like Um I have a documentary I've been working on for the past 10 years of the director coming before the end of the year um and that's that's been like one of the big works I have coming up. But um yeah, this, I could see a very fun animation. I can't just cover alone. Amazing. Please come back when you promote your next project. Obviously very busy. Thanks to big wave surfer and author Maya Gabeira, her new picture book, Maya and the Beast right there available for pre order now and will be available wherever books are sold Starting August two tomorrow, closer to cute dogs, stormy and nas right