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 known for kidnapping, where you can never quite relax.

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 every island nation that gets waves in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. But that's a relatively recent development in most places.

I need to conduct myself differently in different communities. In my experience, the journalistic conventions - you know, I'm the reporter, you're the subject, the interviewee - actually tend to hold steady much more consistently in rural Africa than they do in the American inner city.

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 fact.

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 dragon's cave.

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.