Kem Nunn spent his youth in Southern California surfing and working on boats and did not go to college to study the writer's craft until he was nearly 30, so when he wrote Tapping the Source, (1984) a novel that had the surfing community at its heart and which rapidly came to be recognized as a surfing classic and which earned the tag 'surfing noir', he was writing from a lifetime of experience. Since then he has sold the film rights to Tapping the Source, and Dogs of Winter, also set in the surfing community, but despite rumours of both of them going into production, nothing has reached the screens yet. He is also the author of Unassigned Territory and Pomona Queen, which has just been released in the U.K.

Kem Nunn now lives in Northern California, has contributed articles to Surfer Magazine, and added university work and screenwriting to his list of occupations alongside his fiction, screenplays including Wild Things and The Ransom, both directed by John McNaughton.