Jaimal Yogis

Jaimal Yogis is an American author, producer, and writer. A graduate of Columbia Journalism school in New York, Yogis began his writing career as a journalist, writing for publications like San Francisco Magazine, ESPN The Magazine, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. His pieces won awards such as the Leslie Rachel Sanders Award for Social Justice Reporting and a Maggie Award for Best Feature. His AFAR Magazine piece on the first female surfers of Bangladesh helped inspire the documentary, The Most Fearless, by Heather Kessinger, which Yogis later helped write and produce. Yogis's first book, Saltwater Buddha, is a humorous coming-of-age memoir that recounts running away to Maui to learn to surf and living in a Zen Buddhist monastery. The book was internationally praised, translated into numerous languages, and turned into a feature documentary film. His second book, The Fear Project, is a journalistic and scientific book that was also translated into numerous languages and featured in publications like Outside, Forbes, and O, the Oprah Magazine. To write the book, Yogis interviewed many of the world's top scientists, psychologists, and athletes about what fear is and how to live mindfully and courageously in spite of it. He also made himself a research guinea pig, pushing himself to dive with great white sharks and surf the famous, deadly surf break, Mavericks. Yogis's third book, All Our Waves Are Water, is a Harper Collins memoir that takes readers through his travels in the Himalayas, Indonesia, Mexico, Jerusalem, New York City, and beyond. Also widely praised, the book was named a "Best Beach Read of the Year" by the BBC and Publisher's Weekly called it "captivating" and "beautiful" in a starred review. More recently Yogis authored the children's picture book series, Mop Rides the Waves of Life and Mop Rides the Waves of Change. "Mop" was named a 2020 favorite by the prestigious Children's Book Review and "One of the 25 Best Sports Books for Kids of All Ages" by Book Riot. The San Francisco Chronicle called Mop "pure gold" and Booklist said it "should be part of every child's emotional toolkit." The first book in Yogis's fantasy graphic novel series, City of Dragons, created with comic artist Vivian Truong will be released by Scholastic in September 2021. A number of Jaimal's books are in development for film and TV.