Tell us more about yourself.
My old man was career Coast Guard, so I grew up in various spots along the Jersey Shore – mainly the Manahawkin / Long Beach Island area, but also Cape May, Ocean City, Marmora. After graduating from Southern Regional, I earned a bachelor’s in communications from what is now Stockton University. But the shore back in the late-’90s was no place to launch such a career, especially in the off-season. For a while, I worked as a traveling sales rep for a Plainfield-based book dealer, selling remaindered coffee table books to indie bookstores everywhere east of the Mississippi. At the time, Amazon was uprooting the industry, and driving a lot of our established client base out of business. I left the job in fall 1999 and moved to Maryland.
How did you get started with Beach Badge?
I’ve always loved reading and writing. My wife, Davida, long a fixture in underground media, got me into zines and self-publishing. After I relocated to Maryland, I published a few early efforts under an imprint I called Eight-Stone Press, a name inspired by a tourist trap along the English coast. Eventually, I launched a submission-based zine called Smile, Hon, You’re in Baltimore!, a warts-and-all celebration of the city featuring personal essays, poetry, and photography by underground artists, regular workaday Joes, city homicide police, you name it. Smile, Hon ran for many years, and garnered a bit of local and even national acclaim. But I’m a Jersey boy at heart, and almost from the get go I dreamed of applying a similar formula to my native shores. Work and other life circumstances burned me out for a few years in terms of self-publishing, but as we emerged from the pandemic, the time finally felt right to revisit the idea of a Jersey Shore zine. So I began reaching out to friends and family with good shore-related stories that I thought they might be interested in telling. I drew upon everything I’d learned over 15 years of publishing Smile, Hon – what worked, what didn’t. Beach Badge debuted Memorial Day 2022. Asbury Book Cooperative hosted a release party later that summer. Since then, I’ve averaged two issues per year.
What types of stories and prices can people expect to read?
Beach Badge is more of a cultural enterprise than a commercial one. Many people have a somewhat monolithic image of the Jersey Shore in mind, when, in fact, it’s really 130 miles of wildly disparate little fiefdoms, each catering to its own residents and clientele – the same people who return year after year. Old or young, rich or poor, local or benny, there’s a vast, rich trove of diverse experience here that makes the shore what it is; whether it’s yours or mine, in any given case, doesn’t make it any less true. Beach Badge reflects that varied experience – by turns anecdotal, contemplative, hilarious, harrowing – in the form of personal stories, essays, poetry, photography or other visual artwork. Not everyone in its pages is a “writer” per se, though there are more than a few. In the end, a good story told well is the most important criterion, regardless of format. I will smooth any corners that need it, but overall, I favor a light editorial hand to keep things as conversational, colloquial, and true to each author’s own voice as I can, which I think gives the end product a more “authentic” feel.
How do people submit their work to be considered?
Beach Badge is published twice yearly. The submission deadline for the next issue – slated for publication in summer 2025 – is Memorial Day, May 26. Submissions and queries are welcome on our website. Beach Badge is inclusive. Again, all you need is a good story – just write it like you tell it.
Beach Badge is available locally at Asbury Book Cooperative, in Asbury Park, or order it online directly at EightStonePress.com.