River of Words: Contest

Introduction | How to Enter | For Educators | FAQ

River of Words Contest Judges

Art

Thacher Hurd
Thacher Hurd was born in Vermont in 1949, the son of the late Edith Thacher Hurd and Clement Hurd, who together created many beloved children’s books. His family moved to California when he was 5, and he grew up in Mill Valley. After graduating from the California College of Arts and Crafts with a BFA in painting, Thacher started creating his own children’s books. He has written and illustrated over 25 books, among them Mama Don’t Allow, which won the Boston Globe Horn Book award, and Zoom City, which was chosen a New York Times Best Illustrated Book in 1998. Other books of his include Art Dog, Mystery on the Docks and Watercolor for the Artistically Undiscovered. In addition, Thacher and his wife Olivia Scott Hurd, owned and operated the Peaceable Kingdom Press for many years.

Poetry

Robert Hass
Robert Hass is the author of several books of poems, including Field Guide, Praise, and Human Wishes, Sun Under Wood and a collection of essays, Twentieth Century Pleasures. Born in San Francisco, he has lived most of his life in California; its landscapes inform both his poetry and his prose. Hass is also a professor of English at the University of California at Berkeley. His awards include the Yale Younger Poets Award, the William Carlos Williams Award, the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for criticism in 1984, an Award of Merit from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship. From 1995-1997, Hass also served as Poet Laureate of the United States and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.

ASL Poetry Judges

Ella Mae Lentz
Ella Mae Lentz, a 1971 graduate of California School for the Deaf, Berkeley, teaches in the ASL Department at Vista Community College, in Berkeley, California. She has been teaching ASL, Deaf Culture and interpreter preparation at various colleges since 1975. She has trained ASL instructors and interpreters and has lectured at various workshops, including national and international symposiums. Ella was involved in pioneering scientific ASL research and is also known for presentations of her original poetic works in ASL. A videotaped collection of her poems entitled “The Treasure” has been released. Ella’s degree from Gallaudet University is in English and Drama.

Susan Rutherford
Dr. Susan Rutherford, Artistic and Administrative Director of D.E.A.F. Media, is a Phi Beta Kappa scholar and Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of California - Berkeley where she designed and implemented the country’s first university course on the language, culture and history of Deaf people in America. She received her doctorate in Folklore/Deaf Studies from the University of California-Berkeley. Her research and teaching focuses on American Deaf folklore; the traditional arts of American Deaf culture; sociolinguistics of American Sign Language; and minority group dynamics of the American Deaf community. In addition to her teaching and research, Susan is the creater and producer of Celebration: Deaf Artists and Performers and the Deaf Education and Arts Network; Project Director and Exectuive Producer of the PBS series Rainbow’s End; and the Project Director/Producer for the National Endowment for the Humanities Project, American Culture: The Deaf Perspective.

Spanish Poetry Judges

John Oliver Simon

Fancisco X. Alarcón

River of Words^® · 2547 Eighth Street, 13B · Berkeley, CA 94710 USA
info@riverofwords.org · Phone:510-548-7636 · Fax:510-548-2095