A Lasting Legacy of Stories

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Legendary mystery author Mary Higgins Clark, The Queen of Suspense, brought her career full circle with her just-released book (published posthumously) Where Are the Children Now?

Co-authored with Alafair Burke (her co-author on several books), this is a sequel to her first mystery novel, published forty-eight years ago, Where Are the Children?

A breakthrough novel for its psychological approach to suspense and record sales in the millions, Higgins Clark’s first mystery is in its 75th printing.

With 56 bestsellers and loyal readers around the world, more than 100 million copies of her books are currently in print in the U.S. alone.

Incorporating many of her experiences and Irish heritage into her stories, Higgins Clark often chose settings for her books on the coastlines of her native New York, Massachusetts, and California.

Prior to launching her writing career, she worked as a secretary, copy editor and stewardess for Pan American Airlines.

A believer in hard work, she had experienced difficult times firsthand when her father died and her mother took in boarders to make ends meet, which Higgins Clark wrote about in her book Kitchen Privileges: A Memoir. Later when her first husband died, Higgins Clark was left with five children to support.

“Nothing came easy,” she said. It took six years and 40 rejections before her first short story, “Stowaway,” about a Czechoslovakian stowaway on an airplane, was accepted by Extension magazine.

Later, her first book, Aspire to the Heavens, a novel about George and Martha Washington, was published, but was less successful than she had hoped.

When Higgins Clark decided to write a different type of book – a suspense novel about missing children – her career took off. Where Are the Children? published by Simon & Schuster in 1975, was a blockbuster and introduced the world to the woman who would soon be known as The Queen of Suspense.

SurfWriter Girl Patti was fortunate to meet Higgins Clark at a mystery writers conference and remembers talking to the author about the ending of one of her short stories, saying that the twist in the plot gave her chills. Higgins Clark laughed and said that it gave her chills, too.

At the conference Higgins Clark spoke about the craft of writing and how she got ideas, advising us to “add a little romance into the story.” Suspense and romance were the mix that kept her readers coming back.

The fact that she was a master of plotting and misdirection made for one bestseller after another. Like another grande dame of mysteries, Agatha Christie, Higgins Clark kept finding stories to keep us turning the pages late at night to see whodunnit.

True to her Irish roots, down-to-earth, gutsy, and enormously talented, Mary Higgins Clark (1927-2020) never gave up on her writing dream…and because of that has left us a legacy of stories to entertain us and generations to come.

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

SurfWriter Girls

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

Very Peri Blooms in 2022

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

It’s that time again when the Pantone Color Institute chooses its Color of the Year – a choice that influences design, fashion, home furnishings, packaging, and much more.

For 2022, Pantone was inspired by the blue periwinkle flowers that bloom in so many gardens and created Very Peri, “a dynamic periwinkle blue with a vivifying violet red undertone” that the New Jersey-based color influencer says embodies “an empowering mix of trust, faith, energy and verve.”

In choosing its Color of the Year, Pantone relies on a panel of experts in the fashion and design fields, arts and entertainment, and social media.  Now, that it’s officially announced, Very Peri is already showing up in home decor and fashion.

A color that brings to mind the blue in Claude Monet’s impressionist painting Water Lilies, periwinkle has many associations and names, such as sorcerer’s violet and fairy’s paint brush. The color has a dreaminess to it and a sense of untold possibilities.

While Pantone has long been the arbiter of the new year’s dominant color since its first COTY selection in 1999, other rival companies have started making selections of their own, including paint manufacturers Sherwin-Williams (Evergreen Fog) and Benjamin Moore (October Mist) – both, coincidentally, shades of green.

But, if blue or green isn’t your cup of tea, there’s still coffee. When the Wall St. Journal asked readers to come up with their own COTYs, Eileen Ferris, SurfWriter Girl Patti’s sister, submitted this color featured by the WSJ: “Toffee Nut Latte – a warm pale beige reminiscent of the most dependable source of normality that I have relied on through the pandemic.”

Whatever colors brighten your year, each adds another dimension to the color palette. And, in the case of Pantone’s Very Peri, it symbolizes “transition and happiness” – things much in demand now.

So, let color bloom in 2022 and color your world beautiful.

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

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Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

A New Leaf Film 50th Anniversary

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Spring is the perfect time to honor Elaine May – comedienne, film writer/director, and actor extraordinaire – whose laugh-out-loud, tour de force film A New Leaf is a testament to new beginnings and the transformative power of love.

May, who partnered with Mike Nichols (Academy Award-winning director of The Graduate) in the comedy act Nichols and May in 1957, has had a storied career in Hollywood, on Broadway, comedy clubs, and more.

Continually expanding her repertory, May’s focus is often on our abilities to reinvent ourselves. She has written, co-written or directed many of Hollywood’s biggest hits, including The Heartbreak Kid, Heaven Can Wait, Reds, Tootsie, and Dangerous Minds.

Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, Walter Matthau, Charles Grodin, Cybil Shepherd, and Woody Allen have all praised her boundless talent. A two-time Academy Award nominee and Tony winner, May has received numerous accolades

Nichols and May’s popular comedy shows and TV appearances satirized social and intellectual trends while May proved that women could do stand-up comedy. Lilly Tomlin calls May one of her greatest influences. “There was nothing like Elaine May, with her voice, her timing, and her attitude.”

In SurfWriter Girls favorite film, A New Leaf – which was May’s writing and directing debut (1971) – she also stars as a wealthy botanist hoping to find an undiscovered plant opposite Walter Matthau, a bankrupt playboy who marries May for her money.

Little does Matthau know what he is getting into as the two opposites – the socially inept and unkempt May and the fastidious connoisseur of life’s finer things Matthau – hilariously embark on married life and the roller coaster of surprises it brings.

Based on a story by Jack Ritchie that May read in the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, A New Leaf is part murder plot and part love story, held together with quick wit that keeps the viewer guessing what’s going to happen right up to the end.

With spring planting underway and people seeking joy in nature’s new beginnings, what could be better than to discover A New Leaf and the cinematic talents of the aptly named Elaine May?

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Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

A Poet – Philosopher for All Time

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

At an uncertain time like now, the writings and wisdom of the 13th Century Persian poet Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī are more needed than ever.

Known more simply as Rumi, this learned individual was a man of many talents – a poet, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic (whirling dervish) – who left the world a beautiful legacy of poetry and wisdom for the ages.

Revered for both his insights and humility, Rumi thought that it was important to look inward before we can hope to change things around us. He said, “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to save the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”

Rumi also believed that intellectual matters of the mind often stemmed from questions and feelings of the heart. He observed, “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

The underlying theme of most of his poems and writings is the need for love and its ability to transform us and our relationships…if we will only let it.

Hoping to bring people together in harmony, Rumi was opposed to violence and discord.

One of the most translated, quoted and enjoyed writers of all time, Rumi’s books sell millions of copies each year.

He spent most of his life in the Sultanate of Rum, the center of Persian Society, in what is now Turkey.

Rumi, who became a whirling dervish, believed that poetry, music, and dance could be combined as a path for reaching God. In Rumi’s honor, the Malevi Order of Whirling Dervishes was founded in 1273 after his death to perform the rhythmic, spinning dance called the Sufi.

Dazzling to see, dervishes can often spin for several minutes at speeds up to one revolution per second.

Whether writing, teaching, or spinning Rumi never forgot the importance of love, noting that it is there “in the silence of love you will find the spark of life.”

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Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

Creating Wonders, Making Waves

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

A pen in the right hands can create wonders. This is especially true when it’s one of the Posca paint pens surf artist Drew Brophy uses to apply his electrifying images on stretched canvas and surfboards.

“The pens saved my life,” says Brophy, explaining that they enabled him to paint in an entirely different way, freed from the labor intensive and messy air brush methods he had used before. Paintings that took all day to do could be done in a fraction of that time. And the detail and clarity were far superior.

Brophy’s journey to becoming one of the world’s top surf artists wasn’t easy, filled with setbacks, rejections, and questions about whether he could turn his passion for surfing and painting into a career. But, through it all he never lost faith in his abilities and desire to create his own unique vision for all to see.

SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel are always in awe of Brophy’s powerful paintings and how they draw you into another world of color and excitement. You’re in a parallel universe where the suns are brighter and the oceans are bluer.

Raised in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, when Brophy was four years old his dad got him a Styrofoam kickboard and he wrote his name “Drew” on it with crayons. “It was the first board I ever painted,” says Brophy. Who would have guessed that this was the start of the surfing and painting life Brophy has made for himself?

Along the way, one pivotal event helped him to find his path to success. It was an act of kindness by a family friend. In 1992 Brophy was talking to his parents and their friends the Rosens about some colored ink pens he thought would be great for painting surfboards, but they were only available in Japan.

“Two weeks later I came home and was surprised to find a giant box on the kitchen table. It was full of Uni Posca paint pens of every size and color,” Brophy recalls. “Mr. Rosen had gone to Japan on business and searched all over the city to find them for me.”

With his wife Maria, who he met in 1996, by his side Brophy has achieved a level of success greater than he ever dreamed. His soulmate – the Yin to his Yang – Maria is also a marketing expert who has helped Brophy find his artistic niche and develop a global audience.

Brophy has painted surfboards and skateboards, T-shirts and shoes, music CD covers, event posters, giant canvasses, worked with brands (Liquid Force Wakeboards, Keen Footwear, Billabong, Google, Pepsi, Hard Rock Casino), exhibited in museums and his own gallery in San Clemente, CA.

SurfWriter Girls and Patti’s husband Greg Kishel were at the gallery for the launch of Brophy’s new book Painting Surfboards and Chasing Waves. Written with Maria, it tells his incredible story and message to artists: “Find you passion and pair it with your art.”

And, pay it forward. On his travels he always leaves some Posca paint pens behind so upcoming surf artists can use them to create their own wonders.

To explore inside the Brophy Gallery, click on the following link and scroll down to the story:  Creative Waves

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An Homage to Surf Culture

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Everywhere you looked in the cavernous Hurley sports company warehouse the walls were filled with artworks – paintings, photographs, montages – depicting the ocean and surfers.

Raw and vibrant, it was a giant, visual wave that stimulated the senses.

Representing the artists in Robb Havassy’s new book Surf Story II, the art on display at the premiere reception in Newport Beach gave guests a preview of what’s in his 550-page book – Robb’s heartfelt homage to surfing and the surf culture.

The massive, two-book collection of art and stories from more than 200 of the most influential artists, photographers, writers, and iconic figures in surfing shows their love and passion for the sport.

SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel were excited to share the stoke on this momentous occasion with Robb and our friend artist Colleen Gnos, who is included in the book.

We were in awe of all the people who turned out for the celebration. Literally the royalty of surf culture creatives, everyone was there to thank Robb for this epic sequel to his 2009 Surf Story.

Watching them pose for a group photo, Patti thought of the famous 1943 MGM studios photo of all its actors – and Louis B. Mayer’s quote: “More stars than in the heavens.”

The Surf Story II reception was equal parts gallery show and book-signing party with friends and family mingling and the artists signing each other’s books and enjoying the vibes.

Robb – at the center of it all – signed books, gave hugs and greetings, and took in the sights and sounds of this long-awaited day.

Like Bruce Brown’s landmark 1966 film The Endless Summer – on display in a 50th anniversary DVD edition – Robb Havassy’s herculean achievement tells the neverending story of surfing.

Surf Story Project: More than a book – It’s history!

– Drew Brophy, surf artist

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Robb Havassy’s Scenes of Summer

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Surf Artist Robb Havassy knows how to celebrate the sun!

His electrifying paintings are an homage to the sun and surfing.

A Southern California native and long-time surfer, Havassy has turned his love of the ocean into memorable paintings that capture the intensity of nature and the relationship of man to the environment.

One of the most celebrated artists in the surfing community, Havassy’s works reflect the joy of surfing and the beauty of the ocean.

SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel always feel like smiling when we see Robb Havassy’s art.

The vibrant colors and bold strokes draw you into each painting and inside a technicolor world where the weather forecast is always “Sunny.”

Robb Havassy’s book Surf Story is a classic – a massive 440-page collection of surf art and stories from 88 of the surf culture’s most influential artists, writers, photographers and iconic figures.

In August the sequel, Surf Story V2, will continue Havassy’s epic project to archive and showcase the surf art and stories that define the sport and the world’s surfing culture.

“Surf Story” does a great job telling the truth, both through story and art, about what is so special about being a surfer.”

– Bob Hurley (surfer, founder Hurley)

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