The Coast News, Aug. 17, 2012

AUG. 17, 2012
THE COAST NEWS
ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT
Send your arts & entertainment
news to arts@thecoastnews.com
Local author pens surfing detective novel set in Encinitas
By Jared Whitlock
ENCINITAS —
Michael Conway, 62,
said he’s wanted to
write a novel since his
mother signed him up
for a creative writing
class in the fourth
grade. But it’s probably
a good thing he
waited until later in
life to start.
“I’ve always wanted
to write a book, but
it’s one of those things
you just never find
the time to do,”
Conway said. “It’s
good in a way, I could
draw from a lot more
experience at my
age.”
Conway just
released “The Surf
Detective,” his first
novel. The self-published
book is a globetrotting
whodunit that
features what Conway
calls every surfer’s
dream: “an allexpense-paid
trip to
Bali and Hawaii.”
With quite a bit of
surf travel under his
belt, including to
spots in Indonesia and
Costa Rica, Conway
said he wouldn’t have been
able to write about so many
exotic locales without having
visited them.
“I think a lot of the best
material comes from real
life,” Conway said. “I wanted
to try and condense my
surfing experiences into a
book.”
If there’s anything
Conway knows, it’s
Encinitas, where he lives
and where a good chunk of
the book takes place.
Residents will recognize the
town and the surf spots in
Conway’s prose.
One passage, for example,
describes the feeling of
driving north on Coast
Highway 101, leaving Solana
Beach and seeing Cardiff
Reef in the distance. Though
much of the book is a love
letter to surfing, Conway
said he wanted to present a
more honest description of
the sport, a contrast to what
Conway sees as Hollywood’s
Encinitas resident Michael Conway holding drafts
and the finished copy of “The Surf Detective,” a
self-published novel that partly takes place in
Encinitas. Photo by Jared Whitlock
take on surfing.
“I’m not trying to portray
Encinitas as a mystical
beach town,” Conway. “I
wanted to avoid the cheesy
things Hollywood does —
surfers that start off every
sentence with ‘dude.’”
“I’m trying to write
what I know,” Conway
added.
Like the main character,
Conway is a longtime
Encinitas local who’s
a general contractor
by trade and enjoys
surfing. They also
share the same personality
and background.
But, as
Conway pointed out,
he’s never had to
“track down a missing
pro surfer that’s part
of a religious cult’s
plans,” the book’s
main plotline. And
while not as dramatic
as a cult, Conway too
has had to grapple
with forces bigger
than him. First and
foremost, the economy.
When the economy
slowed three years
ago, so did the construction
and real
estate industries,
along with Conway’s
work as a general contractor.
With more
time on his hands, he
“just started writing
one day,” guided by
only one notion:
Conway wanted the
book to be a mystery
that would appeal to
surfers and nonsurfers
alike.
Characters, plot and setting
materialized as he went.
“It all just kind of came
out,” Conway said. “It
appeared from different
compartments of my brain
I’m not aware of.”
He finished the first
handwritten draft within
three months. From there,
Conway’s daughter edited
the draft, as well as subsequent
ones.
“She was tough on me,”
Conway said with a laugh.
Several years and halfa-dozen
drafts later, Conway
finished. And with his first
book under his belt, Conway
said he already has another
in mind, a novel that that
will cover the history of his
favorite Costa Rican surf
spot.
“I have the writing bug
and more confidence to
boot,” Conway said.
For now, readers can
A9
check out “The Surf
Detective,” which can be
purchased at amazon.com or
barnesandnoble.com.