Who We Are

River of Words judge, advisor, and co-founder, Bob is the author of several books of poems, including Field Guide (1973), Praise (1979), Human Wishes (1989), and Sun Under Wood: New Poems (1996); and a collection of essays, Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry (1984). His poetry collection Time and Materials (2007) won the National Book Award for poetry and the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. 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. Bob served from 1995 to 1997 as Poet Laureate of the United States and as consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress and as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2001 to 2007. He is a graduate of Saint Mary’s College, and is a Distinguished Professor in Poetry and Poetics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Luz Casquejo Johnston is an Assistant Professor in the Kalmanovitz School of Education (KSOE).  She teaches in the Montessori Teacher Education Program and serves as the Elementary Coordinator.  Her current research focuses on human motivation and self-determination supports in Montessori learning environments.  She has published in the Journal of Montessori research.  Previous to her move to Saint Mary's College, Luz taught lower elementary grades, was a founding faculty member of two charter Montessori schools and served as a principal of two learning centers for a large independent study charter school in Riverside County for eight years which included a Montessori academy.  She has been involved with Montessori education in every capacity starting as a preschool student and continuing on to parent, teacher, board memmber, principal and currently as an educator in the Montessori Teacher Education Program.

David Wood has worked for more than 25 years as an English teacher at Northgate High School in Walnut Creek, currently serving as department chair. He received a Distinguished Teacher award from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington in 2002. He was a member of the board of the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley from 1998 to 2007, and served as Board President from 1999 to 2001. Wood is also a director of the Wood Foundation of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. He received his undergraduate degree from Yale University and a Master of Arts in teaching (MAT) in English education from the University of Chicago.

Maureen Esty received a Master’s in Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Saint Mary’s in May 2017 as well as the Writing Across the Curriculum Fellowship in 2014. For the last two years, Maureen has been facilitating peer collaboration and critical thinking in undergraduate and graduate students. Before coming to California, she worked in Philadelphia for four years with subscribers and donors to such resident companies as the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pennsylvania Ballet, and Opera Philadelphia. She is a speculative fiction writer and an eco-poet. Her work has appeared in the Wittenberg University Art and Poetry Review. An INFJ, Maureen loves tea more than coffee and is currently working on her first novel. 

Florencia Orlandoni is a first-year graduate student and MFA candidate at Saint Mary’s in Creative Non-Fiction. She received the Writing Across the Curriculum Fellowship and also teaches 5th grade Spanish in Oakland. Florencia received her B.A. from UC San Diego in Latin American Studies and Spanish and went on to research oral Andean Literature during her time as a graduate student at the University of Columbia. Florencia writes about her experiences growing up in Argentina and migrating to the United States. She loves thinking about sentences in her kitchen table while drinking mate.

Tanya Castro is a LA born Pisces but was raised in the Bay Area for the majority of her life. She is a first-year graduate student and MFA candidate at Saint Mary’s in Poetry. Tanya loves to travel, the show Friends, and while also currently working as a Patient Care Coordinator, she dreams of being a storyteller whether that be through her own work or publishing the work of others.