I remember surfing in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, even Madeira, when local fishermen had never seen a surfboard before, and refused to believe that we could ….

There are big surfing communities in every country with an ocean coast that I know in Central and South America. Same with Mexico, Bali, and nearly e….

I need to conduct myself differently in different communities. In my experience, the journalistic conventions - you know, I'm the reporter, you're th….

I'm trying to find out what's actually true, which is nearly always something, if not a world of things, that you can't read in books..

Hawaii is the birthplace of surfing, and many Hawaiians or part-Hawaiians surf, but in the rest of the United States it's a pretty white sport..

Even wars, big conflicts that have drawn a lot of news coverage, sometimes seem to me to have a center that hasn't been described, that might yet be ….

The differences between the received wisdom, the standard version of events, and the facts on the ground may be subtle or they may be stark, even pro….

Poor-country surf communities can be complex and, to some extent, leveling. The fisherman's kid is competing head to head with the plutocrat's gilded….

Speaking generally, I think it's useful to acknowledge explicitly the power imbalance between a journalist and the protagonists in a story about poor….

I've felt afraid as a reporter many times. Sometimes it's sharp, as in a bad moment, or a bad situation; other times it's general, as in a country kn….

You're after something - not a story, but a certain, exquisitely intense encounter with beauty - and the only way to find it is to tiptoe past the dr….

It's completely different, for instance, to report on poor farmers in Africa than it is to report on, say, poor African-Americans. The familiarity of….

Rich white people show up in a poor country to pursue their leisure-time fun, get served by black and brown people, and live in relative - or absolut….

I always wanted to write. While I was on a long surf trip, supporting myself with various day jobs, I was working hard on a novel. My third novel, in….

It's so much harder than it looks - to conjure a fictional world that some passing wolf of skepticism can't just blow down in one breath..

Memoir is a weird genre for a reporter. You end up investigating your own memories, reporting out your past..