ROBERT BENCHLEY SOCIETY
Finalists in 2006 Robert Benchley Humor Prize Competition
BOSTON, MAY 16, 2006 -- David Trumbull, Chairman of the Robert Benchley Society
extends thanks to all 106 entrants in the Second Annual Robert Benchley Humor Prize Competition
and congratulates the ten finalists whose essays will now be passed on to Dave Barry,
Pulitzer Prize winning humorist, author of the New York Times best seller, Dave Barry's Money Secrets
for the final judging.
The ten finalists are:
- Dan Burt of Millbrook, Alabama for
Shuffling Cards at Work: Deal Me Out
- Jennifer Byrne of Glassboro, New Jersey for
How To Be Your Own Worst Enemy
- W. Bruce Cameron of Santa Monica, California for
Golf for the First Time
- Sean Ellis of Amityville, New York for
You Say you want a Resolution?
- Harmony Harrison of Bandon, Oregon for
How to Chew or Pilates for Masticators
- Bill Hyder of Columbia, Maryland for
Mr. MacGregor Comes Through
- Christopher Perdue of Eugene, Oregon for
Quitting Coffee: I'd Rather be Eaten by a Raptor
- Mike Procter of Calgary, Alberta for
Better Living Through Research
- Anthony E. Sorrentino of Milton, New York for
Fruit for Thought
- Ed Tasca of Toronto, Ontario for
My six steps for taming any earthquake
The Robert Benchley Society, a not-for-profit organization, was founded in Boston,
Massachusetts in 2003. It has since grown to include members in several countries.
Information about the Society may be found at www.robertbenchley.org.
Robert Benchley (Grandfather of Peter Benchley who wrote Jaws ) rose to fame as a
leading humorist in the 1920s writing for Harvard Lampoon, The New Yorker,
Vanity Fair, where he shared an office with Dorothy Parker, Life magazine, and
as a humor columnist for the Hearst Newspapers. Benchley was also notorious as a
member of the Algonquin Round Table. Today's leading humorists, including
Dave Barry, Woody Allen, Bob Newhart, Russell Baker, and Steve Martin, gratefully
acknowledge Robert Benchley's influence on their work.
Horace J. Digby, the 2005 Robert Benchley Humor Prize says:
"I found my first Benchley book in my parents attic. I was eight years old, pretending
to be too sick to go to school. I never knew adults wrote books like that. It was
love at first sight. I read it over and over. That's when I knew I wanted to be a
humor writer when I grew up, just like Robert Benchley."
|