Ryan Masters
 

“A pair of quietly disturbing tales that will surely resonate with readers.” - Kirkus Reviews

Trampoline Games
It’s the summer of 1986 and all is not well among the sharply defined suburbs of Salt Lake City. A 12-year-old boy arrives in a land of “mountains, Mormons, crickets” to find baffling prejudice, but also intoxicating freedom, lust, moments of heaven and, in the end, a terrible violence.


The Moth Orchid
When a hereditary form of early onset dementia begins to ravage a woman’s mind, she embarks on a desperate quest into her past in hopes of finding answers. Set against the noir backdrop of a sub-zero Alaskan winter, The Moth Orchid is a gripping tale of one woman’s struggle with the inevitability of oblivion.

“Ryan Masters writes stories that pull the rug out from under you— and leave you gasping for air. I've rarely been so surprised as by stories like these. Brilliant work.” – Susie Bright

“Come to Ryan Masters for the lust and violence of youth, stay for madness, decay and death. Above an Abyss is a Borghesian tour de force.” - Elizabeth McKenzie (The Portable Veblen, Stop That Girl)



Goat Trails

Goat Trails is a long-running series of outdoors columns by writer and poet Ryan Masters that takes the reader from the summits of Big Sur to the cold lunar reef below Mavericks and into some of the San Francisco Bay Area’s most intriguing and little-known historical and literary landmarks. Bookmark Goat Trails and check back often for new essays.

Heroic Dose Records logo overlaid on the artist Gary Ruble riding a log spewing lasers.

Established in 2023, Heroic Dose Records is an independent record label out of Santa Cruz, California.

Stream Alazapul today! Pre-order Smoke Chaser’s debut on vinyl! Only $30!

 

Everything Must Burn

In the wake of the 2020 CZU August Lightning Complex Fire, which destroyed 1,490 structures, consumed 86,509 acres and killed one civilian, Lompico resident Ryan Masters volunteered to be a firefighter for the Zayante Fire Protection District. Expecting to “maybe help clear brush or something,” the 48-year-old writer was instead enrolled in a five-month paramilitary boot camp—the 2021 Santa Cruz County Fire Fighter Academy. Good Times Santa Cruz published a chapter of his book-in-progress, tentatively titled “Everything Must Burn: Fighting Fire and Living with Climate Change in the Santa Cruz Mountains” on the cover of its 1/19/22 issue.

Say who now?

OB Swim.jpg

Ryan Masters is a writer, poet, musician, and bodysurfer from Santa Cruz, CA. He spent a decade on staff at the Santa Cruz Sentinel and The Monterey County Weekly. His words have appeared in publications such as The Iowa Review, Catamaran Literary Reader, Gargoyle Magazine, Tule Review, Portland Review, Unlikely Stories, The Surfer’s Journal, Surfer, Scuba Diving, and many others. Above an Abyss: Two Novellas, his first collection of fiction, was published in 2018.

Ryan Masters

Ryan’s a longtime member of the Santa Cruz Body Surfing Association. He co-founded the OB Big Wave Bodysurfing Challenge and founded 2020’s California Bodysurf Freakout.

Ryan is also a founding member of Smoke Chaser and The Suborbitals, two original rock bands.

Finally, he’s an EMT-Firefighter with the Zayante Fire Protection District.