Today, in our continued tribute to women surfers and women’s history month I will be reading chapter 23 of Jim Kempton’s book Women on Waves: A Cultural History of Surfing: From Ancient Goddesses and Hawaiian Queens to Malibu Movie Stars and Millennial Champions. It’s titled The Resurgence of Glide.

Last episode, we explored the pioneering women surfers of the 1950s and 60s, those who helped establish a place in the lineup during a transformative time in surfing. Now, we fast forward into the 1980s and 90s, where women continued carving out their path in a competitive, male-dominated sport. Through the shortboard revolution and the early days of the professional tour, they weren’t just participating—they were progressing the sport right alongside the men.

But this chapter offers a different perspective on progress.

It reminds us that surfing isn’t only about pushing harder, faster, or more aggressively. Sometimes, progress looks like returning to something deeper—style, flow, and connection to the wave. This is a story about beauty in motion, about grace and rhythm, and about how women surfers helped bring longboarding, and the art of glide, back into the spotlight.

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Let’s paddle out.

Chapter 6 of Women on Waves: A Cultural History of Surfing from Ancient Goddesses and Hawaiian Queens to Malibu Movie Stars and Millennial Champions by Jim Kempton moves us into the early twentieth century, when surfing began spreading beyond Hawai‘i and into popular culture. During this time, women played an important role in the evolution of surfing, a role that has not always been discussed. Women like Darrylin Zanuck, Kathy Kohner, Robin Grigg, Aggie Bane, Vickie Flaxman, Claire Cassidy, the Calhouns, and Eve Fletcher who kept showing up and carving out space in the lineup and changing the direction of surfing in the process.

If you’d like to help support the podcast, you can visit buymeacoffee.com/thesurferslibrary. Your support helps cover the platform fees that keep the show going each month.

Also, if you would like to sponsor the podcast or have any story ideas or feedback for the podcast, please contact us on Instagram or at thesurferslibrary@gmail.com.

Let's paddle out.

In honor of Women’s History Month, I’m diving into Jim Kempton’s incredible book, Women on Waves: A Cultural History of Surfing: From Ancient Goddesses and Hawaiian Queens to Malibu Movie Stars and Millennial Champions.

This book is dedicated to restoring women to their rightful place in the history of surfing. Because from the very beginning, women have been in the lineup.

Long before professional tours, sponsorship deals, or glossy magazine covers, women were riding waves in ancient Polynesia. They were part of the fabric of early beach communities in California. They pushed limits, challenged expectations, and carved out space in a culture that didn’t always make room for them.

Kempton lays out why this history matters, how these stories were sidelined, minimized, or erased, and why bringing them forward changes the way we understand surfing itself. We’ll go back to the roots, tracing women’s surfing to its origins and exploring how history slowly, and sometimes deliberately, shifted the spotlight away from them.

So in the spirit of Women’s History Month, paddle out with me as we begin rediscovering the women who were there all along and give their stories the space they’ve always deserved.

Today’s episode is a heavy one, in the best way. We’re diving into Chris Ahren's latest book Windansea: Life, Death, Resurrection. I’ve been chomping at the bit to crack this book open since the day it landed in my hands.

This book isn’t just about surfing, it’s about place, identity, loss, and what it means to come back from the edge. Windansea isn’t just a wave; it’s a proving ground. Ahrens takes us inside one of the most intense surf communities ever, and right from the jump, you can feel the weight of what that place represents: loyalty, danger, beauty, and consequences.

In these opening pages, we get the foundation of the whole story, where Windansea comes from, why it matters so much, and how it shaped the people who grew up in its shadow. People like Woody Brown, Carl Ekstrom, Mike Hynson, Pat Curren and the list goes on. This is where the myth meets real life.

So settle in, maybe picture the cliffs and the lineup at sunset, and let’s paddle out into Windansea: Life, Death, Resurrection.

Today I’ll be reading from a book I recently picked up titled The Way of the Surfer: Living It, 1935 to Tomorrow by our friend Drew Kampion.

The Way of the Surfer profiles thirteen incredible names from surf history: Woody Brown, John Severson, Dick Brewer, Nat Young, Billy Hamilton, Rolf Aurness, Gerry Lopez, Tom Curren, Lisa Anderson, Kelly Slater, and Titus Kinimaka.

Today’s story is titled “John Severson: Inventing Surf Culture,” all about the guy who created the bible of our sport Surfer Magazine. It tells the story of how one surfer with a camera helped shape the look, feel, and mythology of modern surfing. Let’s paddle out and see how surf culture was born and why Severson’s influence is still everywhere you look in surfing today.

If you’d like to help support the podcast, you can visit buymeacoffee.com/thesurferslibrary. Your support helps cover the platform fees that keep the show going each month.

Also, if you would like to sponsor the podcast or have any story ideas or feedback for the podcast please contact us on Instagram or at thesurferslibrary@gmail.com

This episode we revisit Matt Warshaw’s book Surfriders: In Search of the Perfect Wave and read a story called “Masters of the Universe”

In this story Warshaw takes us straight into the pressure cooker of professional surfing, where talent, ego, friendship, and fate all collide. We drop in at Pipeline in December of 1995, at the Chiemsee Pipeline Masters the final event of the season, held at the most dangerous and consequential wave on tour. The stage couldn’t be bigger: a semi-final heat that will decide the world title. On one side is Kelly Slater, already a prodigy, chasing another championship and redefining what high-performance surfing looks like. On the other is Rob Machado, smooth, stylish, and surfing with a looseness that seems almost out of place in a moment this tense.

If you’d like to help support the podcast, you can visit buymeacoffee.com/thesurferslibrary. Your support helps cover the platform fees that keep the show going each month, so any little bit truly helps.

Also, if you have any story ideas or feedback for the podcast please contact us on Instagram or at thesurferslibrary@gmail.com

Let’s paddle out.

This episode we dig into chapters 1, 2 and 3 of Corky Carroll's autobiography Not Done Yet.

From growing up in Southern California to chasing waves, contests, and a life shaped by the ocean, Corky’s early chapters set the foundation for one of surfing’s most influential figures. These opening pages are filled with ambition, humor, and the unmistakable voice of someone who helped turn surfing into a profession long before it was fashionable.

If you’d like to help support the podcast, you can visit buymeacoffee.com/thesurferslibrary.

Or, if you would like to sponsor the podcast or have any story ideas or feedback for the podcast please contact us on Instagram or at thesurferslibrary@gmail.com

This episode we are excited to read selected excerpts (chapters 8 & 9) from Phil Jarratt's incredible book Mr. Sunset: The Jeff Hakman Story. Jeff Hakman was born in California in 1948, and by the age of eight his father had already set him on a surfboard. Four years later, the family moved to Oahu, and a year after that at just thirteen Hakman paddled out at Waimea Bay for the first time. We pick up in 1965, Jeff is 17 and finds himself invited into history, competing at Sunset Beach in the inaugural Duke Kahanamoku Invitational. Paddle out with us and learn how Mr. Sunset arrived on the world surfing stage.

If you’d like to help support the podcast, you can visit buymeacoffee.com/thesurferslibrary. Your support helps cover the platform fees that keep the show going each month.

Also, if you would like to sponsor the podcast or have any story ideas or feedback for the podcast please contact us on Instagram or at thesurferslibrary@gmail.com