"Sunset Beach" was a short story written by Marshall Ferguson shortly before he graduated from Santa Barbara. He tried to sell it to New Fictions where he sold his first story but they rejected it. He did manage to sell it to Storytastic, a web publication, for $286.65 or five cents a word. The story was autobiographical and concerned a young man just graduating college and trying to figure out what to do with his life especially with zero job prospects.