Intro
Over the past 20 years, I have built a healthy freelance relationship with numerous publications while developing a solid career as a storyteller: journalist, video director and marketing writer. This has ranged from long form dig-your-heels features to community journalism, travel features, product reviews, in-depth character portraits and even coverage of world class snowboard and surf competitions.
From epic trips to great swells, tattoo culture, underground music, the surf world, environmental issue, festivals, snowboarding, boating, local happenings, and social commentary, I love to tell the story. I’ve even started writing for some fishing publications. And I know just enough about fishing to know that I know nothing about fishing.
Publications I’ve Worked With
N’East Magazine
Transworld Surf
Salt
Transworld Surfing
Resolve
Offshore
Blog Posts
Backyard Parties for Surfline
We are fast approaching the peak of the Atlantic Hurricane Season. I wrote this piece for Surfline as something of a primer but then we had Hurricane Henri and sadly the mess of Hurricane Ida. Check out Backyard Parties for Surfline. We love to run around and chase swells. But for this one, my idea was to record stories off East Coasters who stayed home and scored. So I did this with my friends Rob Kelly and Jamie DeWitt as ...
Ronnie Green for Anglers Journal
First off, if you have any interest at all in fishing, check out Angler's Journal. It's an amazing magazine with gorgeous photography and really thoughtful stories. Green Outdoors It's actually crazy that I should pen a story for such a publication, or any fishing magazine for that matter. When they asked for my bio, I included "Jon Coen knows enough about fishing to know that he knows nothing about fishing." They edited that to soften the blow, but ...
Right Coast Tattoo Move for the Sand Paper
For the first time in 22 years, Long Beach Island does not have a tattoo shop. The town of Barnegat, however, just got a new shop with a solid legacy. Dan Binai opened Right Coast Tattoo in Ship Bottom 14 years ago. Set back from the Boulevard in one of the cut-outs, the shop flourished right along with the industry that saw massive growth from the mid-2000s. The shop had a consistent year-round clientele. Summers always saw traffic from visitors ...
NJ/NY Winter Surfing for RedBull.com
This winter we had a great project lined up for Red Bull around winter surfing in New York and New Jersey but alas, there was a huge pandemic spike in December and there was no way to hold a live event in January. Instead we had to make the change and make this an online project. See the full piece at RedBull.com. Working with the Red Bull editors, I helped identify five year-round surfers in the region who are not ...
Jamaican Surf Team Scores Swell and Support
Jamaica is very much on my bucket list. I have long heard about Jamnesia, the idyllic rootsy and charmingly ramshackle beach enclave that every wander-curious surfer in the hemisphere has read about. It’s the surf camp/music venue/homestead/skate spot established many years ago by the patriarch of Jamaican surfing, Billy Wilmot, aka, Billy Mystic, frontman of the internationally acclaimed reggae group, the Mystic Revealers. (Saw the Revealers at Reggae Sunsplash in 1992.) This year I am getting there. In the meantime, ...
Kemper’s Superhuman Recovery for Men’s Journal
As of Sunday, the World Surf League has released several weekly episodes on the phenomenal story of Billy Kemper's recovery. A little over a year ago, Kemper was fighting for his life in Morocco after a brutal bounce off the bottom. By December, he was back out charging Jaws. I interviewed Kemper specifically on his fitness program in rehabbing from his injuries. He's not only a certified XPT Trainer, but credits the program to his amazing comeback. Professional surfing through ...