Creating Waves

by Aaron Topp

'To put yourself at the mercy of something as awe-inspiring as the ocean is to accept your place in the world.'Surfing is a seductive mistress, providing inspiration, a time for reflection, personal challenge and sheer exhilaration. this is especially true in NZ, where we have an affinity with the sea, and a disproportionately high number of artists, writers and musicians surf. Aaron topp, himself a surfer, explores this close relationship, and the role surfing and the sea plays in the creative lives of a selection of leading musicians, painters, sculptors, poets and fellow writers. In a series of perceptive and revealing personal profiles, he discovers that, as we suspected, while surfers may function in normal society, in reality they're a few steps removed. Putting yourself at the mercy of something as awe-inspiring as the ocean is to accept your place in the world, and while there's great risk and skill required, at the same time the rewards are such that these children of the sea do it again and again as it becomes their sanctuary, a time to meditate free of constraint. Profiles include SurfAid founder Dr Dave Jenkins, film directors Damon Meade, Andrew Forrester and Andrew McAlpine, carvers Jess Santorik and Aaron Kereopa, sculptor Nick toa, musicians Fran Kora and Ian King, photographers Daisy Day and Craig Levers and artists Justin Summerton, Ben Galbraith, Ken thomas, tony Ogle, Daryn McBride and many others, providing a fascinating cross-section of contemporary artists.

306 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2009

About the author

Hawkes Bay based Aaron Topp is a former teacher and a writer. His first book Single Fin is a coming-of-age story about a boy obsessed with surfing. Based on a true story, Single Fin won an Honour Award in the Young Adult Fiction Category of the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults 2007. His second book, Creating Waves, is a series of mini-biographies of famous creative New Zealanders who surf. 2015 saw the publication of Topp's Young Adult novel Hucking Cody. The novel tells the story of Cody, a young mountain biker whose unlucky run with girls, his family, and his job starts him on a journey of self-discovery.

Hucking Cody received a Storylines Notable Book Award in 2016 and was a finalist for the Young Adult Fiction Award in the 2016 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.

Reviews

[Mike Hales · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deceptive book that appears all surfy, wavy but the more you read it, the more fascinating the stories and individuals are. By the end, this was a really inspiring and refreshing read. My only criticism would be that better editing would have raised what is a good book to be a great one.