BELLEVUE, Wash. — Ilana Long has been a stand-up comedian, an English teacher and now, thanks to her love of pickleball, a published novelist.

"I do love it," Long said. "I would say that eating chocolate is usually the highlight of my day, but pickleball is a close second."

Long started playing pickleball during the pandemic. She's an extrovert and said she desperately needed exercise and opportunities to mingle.

"I've met people through playing pickleball that I would never have met under other circumstances and built some real true friendships," Long said. 

It was 2020 and Long had just spent seven years writing her first novel about, of all things, a pandemic. The timing could not have been worse.

"Publishing houses were like 'Oh no,'" Long said. "And I was crushed. And I said, I don't know what to do to my agent. You know, I worked so hard on this. And she's like, 'Why don't you write something funny about something you love?'"

And that's how the contemporary romance "Pickleballers" came to be.

"Plink," Long read from her book. "Not enjoying this. Plink. This does not feel cathartic. Plink. At all. Plink, plink."

"This book came out very quickly," Long said. "Very quickly for me. It was easier for me to write because I had such a close connection to both pickleball and comedy."

Long's timing could not have been better. Pickleball, the sport invented on Bainbridge Island in 1965, has surged in recent years, with 20 million people playing in the United States alone.

"One of the biggest first dates that people are going on nowadays is playing pickleball because it's really low pressure and not super competitive," Long said. "Yet you can have fun and be outside and do something where you're laughing and having a good time."

With "Pickleballers," Long has taken a big swing and hit a winner.

"It has been really an amazing experience for me and very validating," Long said. "And I'm gratified by that."

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