Benjamin DeMott chairman of the jury, served as juror for the 1987 Rea Award. An author and critic, he is Professor of Literature at Amherst College. He has been a columnist or contributing editor for The Atlantic, Harper’s, Saturday Review and The American Scholar. He is the author of two novels and four collections of essays. Benjamin DeMott has served on the Pulitzer and National Book Award juries.
Cynthia Ozick is the author of seven books. Her works of short fiction are The Pagan Rabbi and Other Stories, Bloodshed and Three Novellas, and Levitation: Five Fictions. Cynthia Ozick’s novels are Trust, The Cannibal Galaxy and The Messiah of Stockholm. Art & Ardor is a collection of her essays. Cynthia Ozick’s fiction and essays have appeared in numerous anthologies, including several volumes of Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Prize Stories. She has served on the National Book Award jury. Besides the 1986 Rea Award, Cynthia Ozick is the winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship (1982) and the American Academy -National Institute of Arts and Letters Strauss Living Award (1983).
Bill Henderson is founder and publisher of The Pushcart Press. He edits the annual Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses series and is winner of the Carey-Thomas Award for Creative Publishing. He is the author of a memoir, His Son. Books he has edited include The Publish-It-Yourself Handbook, The Art of Literary Publishing and Rotten Reviews I and II, all published by The Pushcart Press.