Rehoboth Beach Reads Short Story Contest opens March 1

The Rehoboth Beach Reads Short Story Contest will be held again in 2014. This year's theme is The Boardwalk, and Browseabout Books has again agreed to sponsor a $500 cash first prize. The top stories will be printed in a book to be published later this year by Cat & Mouse Press.

The Rehoboth Beach Reads Short Story Contest invites writers to submit short pieces, 500-3,500 words, of fiction or nonfiction that are entertaining, interesting, humorous, or just plain fun. Each story must incorporate the year’s theme and also have a strong connection to Rehoboth Beach, but writers do not have to live in Rehoboth.

A panel of judges will select the best entries, which will be published in a professionally designed paperback book. Last year’s book, "The Beach House," is already selling strongly at Browseabout Books and is expected to be a big favorite among summer visitors.

“They were so clever in how they incorporated the beach house theme last year,” says contest organizer Nancy Sakaduski. “I can’t wait to see what the writers come up with this year. Night or day, now or then, who’s to say where the boardwalk leads? The time period, characters, setting, plot, and details are all up to the writers.”

Judges for the 2014 contest are Rich Barnett, Sarah Barnett (no relation to Rich), Lisa Graff, Kristen Gramer, Fay Jacobs and Ramona DeFelice Long. The judges will select the stories to receive the top prizes and will also award individual judge’s awards for stories they feel deserve special merit.

Rich Barnett writes the popular Camp Stories column in the magazine Letters from CAMP Rehoboth and is the author of "The Discreet Charms of a Bourgeois Beach Town: Rehoboth Beach Stories." His short story Crimes Against Nature appeared in "No Place Like Here: An Anthology of Southern Delaware Poetry and Prose" and won first place in the 2011 Delaware Press Association Communications Contest.

Sarah Barnett is vice president of the Rehoboth Beach Writers' Guild, where she leads a weekly free write and also teaches writing classes. Her story No Place Like Here was published in "No Place Like Here: An Anthology of Southern Delaware Poetry and Prose." Her entry in the 2013 Rehoboth Beach Reads Short Story Contest, The Summer of Your Discontent, won first place and was published in "The Beach House."

Lisa Graff has published more than 100 articles in newspapers and national magazines, including four personal essays in the Washington Post, and a weekly neighborhood news column in the Gaithersburg Gazette. Her essayGetting My Feet Wet was the nonfiction winner in the 2012 Rehoboth Beach Writers' Guild/Delaware Beach Life contest.

Kristen Gramer is the assistant director of the Lewes Public Library and is the organizer of the Lewes Creative Writers’ Conference, which is held each summer.

Fay Jacobs is an award-winning writer as well as a publishing and editing consultant. She is the publisher of A&M Books and teaches classes in humor writing, editing, and memoir writing. She has written for publications such as the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Delaware Beach Life, Delaware Today, and The Advocate. She is the author of "Time Fries! Aging Gracelessly in Rehoboth Beach" and other humorous books about Rehoboth.

Ramona DeFelice Long is an independent editor, online writing instructor, and award-winning writer whose work has appeared in publications such as The Arkansas Review, Lunch Ticket, TOSKA, Literary Mama, CRICKET, 10kToBI, Handspun, Delaware Beach Life, and Blue Lit. She received individual artist fellowships from the Delaware Division of the Arts in Literature - Fiction and Literature - Creative Nonfiction, as well as grants and scholarships from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Pennsylvania State Arts Council, Philadelphia Stories, and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She maintains a literary blog at ramonadef.wordpress.com.

Submissions for the 2014 Rehoboth Beach Reads Short Story Contest will be accepted starting Saturday, March 1. A full list of guidelines and entry information is available at www.catandmousepress.com. Potential entrants are encouraged to read a copy of "The Beach House," which contains the winning stories from the 2013 contest, to see the kinds of stories that were selected. Contest information is also published on the contest Facebook page at www.facebook.com/RehobothBeachReads and in the Cat & Mouse Press newsletter. Sign up at www.catandmousepress.com.