L. Ann Wheeler is a writer and artist in California. Abandoners, her first book, is forthcoming from The Operating System in Fall 2018. She studied at the Pratt Institute, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and currently at the University of Kansas.

Huntington Dog Beach

I never changed my license to New York, Iowa, Missouri, or Kansas because Massachusetts’ has ocean waves in the background. They’re probably anti-fraud swells, but they’ve been with me the whole time I was in the midwest. Huntington Dog Beach was the first ocean swimming I did this summer—with two sweet friends and one nervous dog, a week after moving to California. My burn’s still peeling.