Meet the Judges
Paul Jones
Chair of the Judges | www.ibiblio.org/pjones/blog
Paul Jones is director of www.ibiblio.org, a collection of collections from open source software to Project Gutenberg to eTree to folkstreams.net. Jones holds a BS in Computer Science and an MFA in Poetry. His chapbook, What the Welsh and Chinese Have In Common, was a North Carolina Writers Network Publication winner and has been available on the web for over a decade. Jones teaches in the School of Information and Library Science and in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina. He has taught a wide variety of classes, including a student-designed class on the Postmodern Comic Book. Paul was one of the original three judges for the inaugural Blooker Prize in 2006.
Arianna Huffington
Arianna Huffington is the co-founder and editor of the HuffingtonPost.com, a nationally syndicated columnist, and author of eleven books. She is also co-host of "Left, Right & Center," public radio's popular political roundtable program. Her weekly commentary is syndicated in newspapers across the country by Tribune Media Services.
On May 9, she launched The Huffington Post, an Internet publishing venture featuring an innovative group blog where some of this country's most creative minds weigh in on topics great and small, political and cultural, important or just plain entertaining.
Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. At 21, she became president of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union. She has written eleven books; her latest is On Becoming Fearless.... in Love, Work, and Life.
Julie Powell
http://juliepowell.blogspot.com
Julie Powell was the first ever Overall Winner of the Blooker Prize, winning in 2006 for her blook Julie & Julia. She was born and raised in Austin, Texas. After graduating from a northeastern liberal arts college with an incredibly useful double major in theater and fiction writing, she embarked, with husband-to-be Eric in tow, upon a seven-year foray into New York City's dizzying wealth of temp jobs. This enlightening tour of desperate dead-end jobs culminated in a year-long blogging endeavor, "The Julie/Julia Project," which ended in late August of 2003. She now writes in her pajamas for a living-long may this career path continue. She lives in a "loft" in Long Island City, Queens, with her long-suffering husband, three cats, one snake, and a 110-pound dog named Robert.
Rohit Gupta
http://algomantra.blogspot.com/
Rohit Gupta, aka DJ Fadereu, is a Bombay-based sidewalk philosopher standing at the intersection of art and technology. His most recent work is "a hip hop hopera" called The Jantar Mantar Projekt.
All previous work is listed at Gupta's homepage: http://rohitgupta.xwiki.com
Nick Cohen
Nick Cohen is a columnist for The Observer and New Statesman. He does occasional pieces for many other publications, including the London Evening Standard and New Humanist. Cruel Britannia, a collection of his journalism, was published by Verso in 1999, and Pretty Straight Guys, a history of Britain under Tony Blair, was published by Faber in 2003. Our Friends on the Left, an examination of agonies, idiocies and compromises of mainstream liberal thought, will be published by 4th Estate in 2006.
His latest book is What's Left: How Liberals Lost Their Way, now out in paperback.
