Debbie Friedman

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William Finnegan, Mary Karr, Helen Macdonald, Pico Iyer, John McPhee, ...more

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February 2026


Debbie Friedman began her career as a California State Parks ocean lifeguard in 1978, one of the first women to hold that position on the California coast. She worked for twelve years in the surf, and never left it behind.

GUARDED: Women, Water, and Saving Lives is her debut memoir. Debbie takes the reader alongside her and the pioneering women who came before and beside her — into the surf, the absurdities, the physical demands, and what it means to save a life, including your own. Readers keep mentioning the humor — turns out being a woman in a job nobody thought women could do was rich material.

She lives in Aptos, California.

Average rating: 4.44 · 9 ratings · 4 reviews · 1 distinct workSimilar authors
GUARDED: Women, Water, and ...

4.44 avg rating — 9 ratings2 editions
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The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition by Jane Friedman
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When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams
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When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams
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The Woman's Hour by Elaine F. Weiss
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A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
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“Lifeguarding gave me a path to be the woman I chose to be”
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