Cooper Gegan

Title: Associate Editor

Email: cooper@theinertia.com

Location: Los Angeles, CA

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Expertise

Surfing

Years in This Expertise: 15+

Education & Certifications

Education: BA in English, Princeton University

Years of Writing: 15+

Experience

Cooper Gegan grew up in Culver City, California, consuming a mix of old movies, pulp sci-fi novels and trash TV. When he didn’t have his nose in some form of pop-culture, he was surfing and skimboarding the beaches of Los Angeles County and beyond.

After studying English and visual arts at Princeton University, he returned to Los Angeles to pursue a career in entertainment. In the following years, he worked in the production department of a number of series, including American Horror Stories, Speechless, and Shark Tank. All the while, he was honing his craft as a writer, penning both television and feature scripts in a variety of genres.

As an Associate Editor for The Inertia, he has found a way to link his passion for storytelling to a lifelong relationship with surfing. He seeks out stories that reveal the intricacies of the surfing world: from riding waves, to shaping, to the environment.

Career Highlights

• Producing an editorial series where surfboard shapers tell the story of the first board they created.
• Writing about the experiences of the Réunion Island surfing community during the 2011 to 2019 “Shark Crisis.”
• Surviving a workout at the bottom of Laird Hamilton’s pool.

My passion is for storytelling in all forms, whether it is television, feature films or journalism. At The Inertia, I’ve been able to take the lessons I learned writing narrative fiction and use them to tell stories about surfing.

Back when I was a kid, learning to surf the breaks around the Los Angeles area, I would never have imagined I’d one day be able to make a living talking to surfers, shapers, and scientists. Their stories are as fascinating and varied as any work of fiction, and being able to tell them is a privilege.