Title: Contributing Gear Writer
Email: michaelbishop1981@gmail.com
Location: Waialua, Hawai’i
Expertise
- Topics of Expertise: Surfing, free diving, trad and sport climbing, mountaineering, snowboarding, trail running, hiking, camping, zip-off pants.
- Years in This Expertise: 15-25+ years.
Education & Certifications
- Education: Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, University of Idaho.
- Years of Writing: 20+.
- Certifications: First Aid (expired), CPR (expired), HAZWOPER (expired).
- Club or Association Memberships: Hawai’i Climbing Coalition, Taranaki Alpine Club.
- Awards or Recognitions: 2023 Fulbright Fellowship in Aotearoa New Zealand, Access Fund’s Bebie Leadership Award for excellence in climbing advocacy, Climbing Magazine’s Golden Piton Award for community activism/organizing.
- Previous Publications: literary work can be found in About Place Journal, Boulevard Magazine, The Normal School, River Teeth’s Beautiful Things, and elsewhere.
Experience
Mike Bishop is a sea-sculpted writer who entered this world not far from the Seven-Mile Miracle on O’ahu’s famous North Shore, which he once again calls home. Before finding his way to product journalism and gear writing, he most recently spent a year as a Fulbright creative writing fellow in Aotearoa New Zealand where, among a great many other things, he was literally paid by the U.S. State Department to go surfing as part of a comparative study of Hawaiian and Māori surf cultures. He still can’t believe that actually happened.
In what seems like a different lifetime, Mike’s parents moved his family to Colorado, where he spent his adolescence and undergraduate years (BA Psychology, MSU Denver). He also became an avid sport and trad climber, a mountaineer, a trail runner, a snowboarder, and an all-around mountain athlete. He then moved home to O’ahu and spent the better part of a decade as a rock climbing guide, rope access technician, fall safety supervisor, and emergency rescue coordinator on environmental projects throughout the Hawaiian Islands and the Pacific, where he spent every free hour in the ocean, surfing or free diving.
Life had other plans for Mike though, so he left Hawai’i once more to pursue an MFA in creative writing at the University of Idaho. He’s since published essays in a variety of literary journals (even an experimental gear review of sorts) and is now excited to take on reviewing surf gear for The Inertia.
Over the years, his grand surf quests have found him dirtbagging up and down Nicaragua’s Pacific coast for three months, motorbiking between Bali and Sumbawa for four months, and nearly freezing to death during his Fulbright year exploring the waves of Taranaki’s Surf Highway 45. He now appreciates the value of a good wetsuit. With a hooded vest. And booties. And sometimes gloves. (He runs a bit cold in the water.)
Career Highlights
- Surfing Pipeline, Sunset, Hale’iwa, Makaha, Popoyo, Scar Reef, Manu Bay, and dozens of other classic waves (at respectable, but mostly not heroic sizes).
- Climbing in Eldo, Yosemite, Moab, J-Tree, and Mokule’ia, among countless other crags.
- Climbing class 3, 4, and 5 routes on Colorado’s 14ers.
- Co-founding the Hawai’i Climbing Coalition and regaining public access to O’ahu’s Mokule’ia crag after a 3-year closure, for which I was jointly awarded a Golden Piton award and Access Fund’s Bebie Leadership Award.
- Being awarded a 2023 Fulbright fellowship to pursue a trans-Pacific nature writing project in Aotearoa New Zealand.
- Winter climbing on Taranaki Maunga.
- Publishing literary nonfiction in About Place Journal, Boulevard Magazine (forthcoming), The Normal School, and elsewhere.
A Word From Mike Bishop
As a devotee of literary nonfiction, I value writing as a process which can help me make sense of life. As a gear reviewer, I value writing as a process which can help you make sense of online shopping. Surely there’s some convergence of these two paths, where perhaps life wisdom or a broadened perspective might come together with the perfect gear recommendation in a single article.
