A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Alexandre, João (Dapin)

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Pulitzer-prize-winning author and surfer from New York; a 

staff writer since 1987; called the “World Heavyweight Champion of Surf Writing” by Beachgrit’s Derek Rielly in 2015.

Finnegan was born (1952) in New York City, and moved with his family as an infant to Los Angeles. He spent most his childhood and teenage years in Southern California but enjoyed occasional spells living with his family in Honolulu, Hawaii, where his father worked as a film producer. Finnegan learned to surf in California in the longboard-friendly waves of San Onofre at age 10, but quickly improved while surfing the more challenging reef breaks along Oahu’s South Shore as an adolescent.

After earning a BA from UC Santa Cruz in 1974, Finnegan worked a string of jobs (bookstore clerk, railroad brakeman, dishwasher, bartender, English teacher), made extended surf sojourns (Australia, Fiji, Indonesia, South Africa), and took an MFA in creative writing from the University of Montana. He began freelancing articles to 

, among other publications. His debut book, 

Crossing the Line: A Year in the Land of Apartheid, 

was listed by the New York Times as one of the ten best nonfiction books of 1986.

Finnegan first drew the surf world’s eye in 1992 with a two-part 

 article called “Playing Doc’s Games,” a many-layered profile of big-wave surfer and physician Mark Renneker, and the still-underground San Francisco surf scene. Finnegan worked on "Doc's Games" on and off for seven years; it is widely considered to be among the finest pieces of surf writing ever produced.

Surfing, however, was rarely the subject of Finnegan's work, as he focused his muscular prose and observant reporter’s eye on more pressing matters. “I was reluctant to come out of the closet as a surfer,” he told 

in 2015, adding that he wanted to avoid the surf-bum stereotype in the eyes of his cosmopolitan colleagues. “I’ve written mostly about politics, war, poverty, organized crime, U.S. foreign policy, globalization—more hard-edged topics.” Finnegan approached his career as a journalist with the same globetrotting curiosity he’d developed as a traveling surfer. He reported from war-ravaged Somalia, Sudan, Yugoslavia, and Mozambique, and examined from close range the Mexican drug trade. Closer to home, he wrote about disaffected American teenagers.

But Finnegan continued surfing, and his 2015 wave-chasing memoir 

 again put the sport front and center in both his personal and professional life. The book debuted at #5 on the 

Bestseller list, and was immediately praised by both the literary and surf worlds. “Dare I say that we all need Mr Finnegan,” said a reviewer from the 

. “As a role model for a life fully, thrillingly, lived.” In 2016, Barbarian Days was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.

Dateline Soweto: Travels with Black South African Reporters

Cold New World: Growing up in a Harder Country

 (1998). He also wrote the introduction for 

 (2003), and did a 2006 feature piece on the Clark Foam meltdown, "Blank Monday," for the 

Finnegan was a National Magazine Award finalist in 1990 and 1995.

Finnegan, William

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Features

The Sunday Joint

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Features

The Sunday Joint