Dan Reiter is the author of the new book On a Rising Swell: Surf Stories from Florida's Space Coast. His work has appeared in a variety of publications, including The Surfer's Journal, and he lives in Cocoa Beach, Florida.
Q: Over how long a period did you write the essays collected in On a Rising Swell?
A: Half of these pieces were originally published––in various iterations––in
surf magazines or newspapers. The earliest dates back to 2011, but most were
written in ‘21-‘23. Prior to that, I’d been focusing on short fiction, and
hadn’t really considered surf writing a credible mode of expression.
The rest of the surf vignettes––about 25,000 words worth––were written in an
assiduous deadline-induced flurry between February and September 2024, eight
months in which I held myself accountable for 100 finished words per day
(including weekends).
Q: What impact has surfing had on your life?
A: About the same impact the practice of Choy Li Fut has on the Shaolin
student... in myriad and profound ways, both physically and spiritually.
Q: What would you say are some of the most common perceptions and
misconceptions about surfing?
A: Perception is a tricky business, but what I’d offer here is that your common
misconceptions about surfing tend to wash away the instant you ride your first
wave. And they continue to slough off the more you do it. The most common
impediment to surfing, I'd say, is fear––of sharks, of drowning, of being a
kook.
On a broader cultural level, the public perception of surfing is on point. It's
as William Anderson––a surgeon on James Cook’s 1777 expedition to Tahiti––wrote
in his journal (one of the first instances of “surf lit”): “I could not help
concluding that this man felt the most supreme pleasure while he was driven on,
so fast and so smoothly, by the sea.”
Q: Is the surf culture in Florida different from the surf culture elsewhere?
A: Florida’s Atlantic coast is a warm-water beachbreak, that is, a shallow
sandbar where waves spill up and down the beach, and where there are no points,
coves, or bays to produce those long, glassy, peeling lines you see in Hawaii,
California, or the Northeast.
Florida's beginner-friendly conditions spread out the lineups, and allow surfers to coexist in a blissed-out, low-stakes comfort. It’s a mellower, more kid-friendly atmosphere, amenable to learning, which is why some of the world’s best surfers grew up here.
Kelly Slater, widely hailed as the greatest surfer of all
time, is from my hometown of Cocoa Beach, and Caroline Marks, the 2024 woman’s
gold medalist, came up in Melbourne Beach, just a few miles down A1A. There’s a
sense of pride, of being part of a secret club, that defines the Florida
surfer.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: It’s back to the anvil of short fiction for a while. Was it Doris Lessing
who said, “Fiction makes a better job of the truth.”?
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: On a Rising Swell is one of the few surf books written for a
general readership, so that a beginner might paddle out without taking too many
on the head.
By the end, you’ll have learned a bit about surfing, picked up some history on Florida’s indigenous watermen tribes, witnessed the effects of rising seas and hurricanes on a fragile coastline, and conversed with a wild cast of barrier island characters.
It's a slim paperback to tuck into your beach bag, to read in the sand, and to wrinkle, gently, with a little saltwater.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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