Ben Marcus is a natural born writer who worked at Surfer Magazine as an editor for 10 years, and now has 15 published books with his name on them - well most of them, anyway. Born in San Francisco in 1960, Ben lived in the Santa Clara Valley until he moved to Santa Cruz with his mother Sue and younger brother Michael in 1970. Ben was a "Valley" trying to fit in with the cool kids during a time when Santa Cruz was a smaller, quieter, inexpensive hippie beach town. While walking home from Del Mar Middle School, down the hill toward Twin Lakes Beach, Ben saw a wave break at Middle Peak Steamer Lane - and that was that. Ben learned to surf on an eight-foot, purple Haut semi-gun at Cowell's Beach, and had a swell time as a surfer in Santa Cruz in the 1970s. He mostly surfed the east side of town at Pleasure Point and the Hook, but also the Rivermouth and the Santa Cruz Yacht Harbor in the winter. Graduating from Harbor High School in 1978, Ben went to college at UCSC and UC B