Bob Newhart to Judge Robert Benchley Society Humor Writing Competition
Bob Newhart will judge the 2008 Robert Benchley Society Award for Humor writing competition. Entry deadline is April 1, 2008. Visit http://www.robertbenchley.org/2008_competition/enter1.htm. for more information.

/Washington News Articles/ - BOSTON, MA, March 05, 2008 -- Celebrated comedian and humorist, Bob Newhart, the Emmy, Peabody, Grammy and Mark Twain Prize for Humor Award winner, who brought us two of America's most beloved television sitcoms will serve as finalist judge for the 2008 Robert Benchley Society international humor writing competition. The competition honors Robert Benchley who is acknowledged as an inspiration by many of America's greatest comic talents including Dave Barry, Woody Allen, Steve Martin, Jonathan Winters, Richard Pryor, Steve Allen, Shelly Berman, Russell Baker and Newhart himself.

We invite everyone with an interest in writing humor to enter our 2008 competition," David Trumbull, Robert Benchley Society chairperson said. "If you have a sense of what makes people laugh and can write, you can be a part of it," Trumbull explained.

Entries must be original short essays (500 words or less) written in the style of Robert Benchley, submitted by e-mailed no later than April 1st, 2008, together with a $10.00 entry fee (used exclusively help with travel expenses for the first place winner, prizes and actual costs of the competition)," Trumbull said.

A panel of carefully selected judges will review all entries choosing the top ten as finalists, before Bob Newhart selects and ranks the top four. Pulitzer Prize winning humorist Dave Barry served as finalist judge for the 2006 and 2007 competitions. Preliminary judges have included Gordon E. Ernst, author of Robert Benchley An Annotated Bibliography; Kevin Fitzpatrick, Chairperson of the Dorothy Parker Society of New York and author of A Journey into Dorothy Parker's New York; MIT genius Steven Jens, writer Eileen Forster Keck; Robert Benchley aficionados David and Sharon Lyon, puzzle designer Chris Morgan, radio personality Tom Saunders, past Robert Benchley Society award winner Horace J. Digby and Robert Benchley Society chairperson David Trumbull.

The Robert Benchley Society is, "dedicated to the type of warm and self-effacing comic writing that made Benchley so beloved in his lifetime, and has influenced so many of the most popular and successful comic minds of the last 50 years," said past Benchley Society Award winner Ed Tasca, who holds the singular distinction of placing among the top four winning entries for three consecutive years.

Robert Benchley rose to fame in the 1920s writing for Harvard Lampoon, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Life magazine and as humor columnist for the Hearst newspaper chain. Benchley appeared in more than eighty short films and feature length motion pictures. He is credited, along with Dorothy Parker, as a founder of the notorious Algonquin Round Table.

"Everyone is welcome," said 2005's top winner Horace Digby, who has since returned to help judge the annual event. "Judges read all entries blind. We don't know who wrote any particular essay until the judging is finished, so the competition is entirely merit based."

The competition is open to amateurs and professionals alike. Last year top honors went to Daniel Montville of Oak Park, Illinois for How to Write a Book; and second place went to George Waters of Pasadena, California for T'ai Chi for Beginners, or "War and Peace" - both of whom are relative newcomers to the craft of comic writing. While in 2006 the top winner was W. Bruce Cameron, of Santa Monica, California, author of Eight Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, which inspired the Emmy Award winning Disney/ABC television series staring the late John Ritter, the best selling humor book How to Remodel a Man, and the movie, Cook Off.

To enter the 2008 Robert Benchley Society Humor Competition and for more information about Robert Benchley, visit: http://www.robertbenchley.org/2008_competition/enter1.htm.

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