Reed Environmental Writing Award: Judges
SELC is grateful to the writers, journalists and activists who generously volunteer their time and talent to serve as judges for our contest. Judges for the 2012 contest are:
Joel K. Bourne, Jr. Contributing writer and former Senior Editor for the Environment at National Geographic; winner of Outstanding Explanatory Journalism award from Society of Environmental Journalists. (Photo credit: Rebecca Hale/National Geographic Image Collection)
Bruz Clark—President and treasurer of the Chattanooga-based Lyndhurst Foundation, Director of its Environmental Grantmaking Program; member of the Society for Conservation Biology, Consultative Group on Biological Diversity, Land Trust Alliance, Southeastern Council of Foundations, and Timber Frame Guild.
Jim Detjen - Director, Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, Michigan State University; founding president of Society of Environmental Journalists; former award-winning reporter for Philadelphia Inquirer.
Hannah Fries -Associate Editor and Poetry Editor of Orion magazine, winner of the 2010 Independent Press Award for General Excellence; board member of The Frost Place (New Hampshire); her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals.
Silas House—Author of The Coal Tattoo and Eli the Good, co-author of Something's Rising; contributor to numerous publications including Oxford American and New York Times; multiple award winner including Kentucky Novel of the Year and Chaffin Prize for Literature; Interim Director, Loyal Jones Appalachian Center; Associate Professor of Appalachian Studies, Berea College.
Nikki Giovanni - Grammy-nominated poet, activist and author of more than two dozen books including essay collections, illustrated children's books, and poetry, most recently Bicycles: Love Poems; University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech.
Janet Lembke - Author of Because the Cat Purrs: How We Relate to Other Species and Why It Matters, and almost 20 other nature books; poems and essays have appeared in Audubon, Southern Review, and The New York Times Book Review.
Bill McKibben - Author of Deep Economy, The End of Nature and several other books, most recently Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet; contributor to The New Yorker, Orion, The Atlantic Monthly and other publications; co-founder of 350.org, an international climate campaign; scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College.
Deaderick Montague - Civic leader, teacher and writer; guiding inspiration behind creation of the Reed Writing Award; Vice President of SELC Board of Trustees.
Janisse Ray - Poet, activist, teacher and award-winning author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood and three other books of literary non-fiction, including the 2011 Drifting into Darien: A Personal & Natural History of the Altamaha River, and a book of poems, House of Branches; founding board member of Altamaha Riverkeeper; Reed Award winner in 2000.
Charles Seabrook – Former veteran environmental reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; author of Cumberland Island and The World of the Salt Marsh, from the University of Georgia Press; Reed Award winner in 1998.
Paul Sloan – Former Deputy Commissioner Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation; founder Partners in Conservation; co-founder Little Planet Publishing; founding board member Cumberland Region Tomorrow.
Donovan Webster - Author of several books, including most recently Ship of Death: The Voyage that Changed the Course of the World; former senior editor of Outside magazine; a contributor to New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, National Geographic and Smithsonian.