"The lone wolf that said, 'I'm committed to covering women’s cycling.'"
-Tobin Heath, 2x Olympic gold medalist and FIFA World Champion
Strong Girl Publishing’s founder Molly Hurford is a writer and podcaster in love with all things cycling, running, nutrition and movement-related. She's a little obsessed with getting people—especially girls and women—psyched on adventure and being outside. That's why she created the Shred Girls, a middle grade fiction series focused on getting girls excited about bikes. Her historical middle grade novel, The Strong Girl, goes back in time—to the 1870s—to see just how strong girls anytime, anywhere can be. And her first YA novel, Running as Fast as We Can, is all about what happens when two former friends get stuck together on the cross-country team at school.
Molly is a member of the Women Fiction Writers Association and the Canadian Authors Association. She is a RRCA run coach, holds 200-hr Yoga Teacher Training certification as well as being NCCP Cycling Coach certified. She holds a Precision Nutrition Level 1 certification and is a Girls Forward Real Role Model.
This isn't Molly's first and only foray into working in this industry. She's published 13 books at this point. She cohosts The Consummate Athlete podcast with her husband, cycling coach Peter Glassford, and the QueenStage Women’s Cycling Podcast with three world-class cycling journalists. She also writes for publications including Bicycling magazine and Runners World.
In her spare time, she is ultra-running and racing on trails, riding bikes, or hiking with her mini-dachshund DW.
Why Molly started Strong Girl Publishing:
After years of being told by publishers that there weren't enough readers to make publishing books on girls in sport viable, I got a little angry. I've seen firsthand the power of a book to change a young girl's life. And as a former non-athlete who eventually developed a love of cycling and running (and turned out, was kinda good at them), I know from personal experience how important it is to see yourself in sport if you're going to take part in it. Visibility matters, and I want to bring stories of girls crushing it in all sports to the world, so that young girls and young women can see themselves in athletics and getting outside.
In my years as an author and an athlete, I've also had the pleasure of meeting a lot of young female athletes with stories of their own to tell, who wanted to write books but who didn't have the resources and know how to self-publish, or the huge audience required to get traditionally published. I'm a firm believer in women supporting other women, and I saw the chance to help these young women by creating a 'secret option C'—publishing with a small company devoted to supporting girls in sport by creating content by girls in sport. It's a win-win-win! We publish books about girls in sport, young girls see themselves in our books, and young women athletes are able to share their stories with the world, and are hopefully (if you're out there buying our books + merch!) making some money to help close that massive wage gap that exists between male and female athletes.
Read about The Strong Girl on Canadian Cycling Magazine here! And read about Strong Girl Publishing over on Women's Running here.
