Henry Rasof
116 Monarch Street
Louisville, CO 80027
phone (303) 664-0183
[email protected]

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

• Acquired over 400 books, including revised editions, for scholarly, reference, professional, trade, and children’s publishers.
• Negotiated contracts with authors, agents, consultants, freelance writers and editors, artists, and photo researchers.
• Utilized competition research, surveys, focus groups, sales analyses, interviews, and meetings to identify topics and authors; determine bindings, pricing, specs, and print runs; and create marketing plans.
• Helped develop company pub plans for books and electronic products.
• Hired, supervised, or directed freelance or staff writers, editors, picture researchers, consultants, book packagers, and interns.

PUBLISHING EXPERIENCE

• Book Publishing Consultant, Louisville, CO

Clients have included A.R.E. Publishing, Congressional Quarterly, e-Global Library, Facts on File, Libraries Unlimited, and M.E. Sharpe. 2000-2008

• The Oryx Press, Phoenix, AZ

Vice President, New Product Development   1999-2000
Senior Editor   1997-1999

• ABC-CLIO, Denver, CO

Senior Acquisitions Editor   1994-1996
Acquisitions Editor (part-time)   1992-1993

EDUCATION

M.A. in Jewish studies, Gratz College, Elkins Park, PA

M.F.A. in creative writing, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY

B.A. in music, University of California, Los Angeles, CA

PANELS AND PRESENTATIONS

• Workshop for adults on writing a liturgical poem for Tishah b’Av, Congregation Nevei Kodesh, Boulder, CO
• Workshop for adults on writing a Jewish liturgical poem, Congregation Bonai Shalom, Boulder, CO
• Workshop for adults on making your own Jewish incantation bowl, Congregation Bonai Shalom, Boulder, CO
• Session on Jewish ethical wills, Boulder Jewish Community Center
• “Reference Publishing on the Web: Issues and Concerns,” RUSA Bibliography and Reference Advisory Committee, American Library Association convention, Washington, DC
• Featured speaker, Society of Children’s Books Writers & Illustrators conference, Lander, WY
• Society of Children’s Book Writers critique group, Loveland, CO
• “Nonfiction Children’s Books,” Society of Children’s Book Writers workshop, Denver, CO
• Society of Children’s Book Writers critique group, Westwood, MA
• Featured speaker, Cape Cod Writer’s Conference, Orleans, MA
• “Writing and Publishing Science Books for Children,” National Science Teachers Association regional convention, Hartford, CT

PUBLICATIONS

“How to Write and Publish a Science Book” (Science Activities, 1988). Picture Life of Charles and Diana (Franklin Watts, 1988). The Folk, Country, and Bluegrass Musician’s Catalogue (St. Martin’s Press, 1982). The Dubrovnik Massacre, a novel (coauthor; Charter, 1981). Teacher’s guide for Scott Joplin filmstrip (Spoken Arts, 1978). Poems, stories, and articles in print and electronic anthologies and literary magazines, and on web sites, including Bachy, Beatitude, Black Box, Boulder Jewish News, Chance Music, In Stereo, Jewish Currents, Kansas Quarterly, Midstream, Partisan Review, Poetica, Salome, Technology of the Heart, Text-Sound Texts, and Wisconsin Review. Four print books of poetry or prose poetry: The House (2008), Chance Music: Prose Poems 1974 to 1982 (2012), Here I Seek You: Jewish Poems for Shabbat, Holy Days, and Everydays (2016), and Souls in the Garden: Poems About Jewish Spain (2019). In 2019 he also created a .pdf of his Uncollected Jewish Poetry and Prose containing work not published in the two previous Jewish books, and three .pdfs of his edited books: Bees in the Garden: Poems by the Masala Mystic; The Persian Letters: A Medieval Persian General’s Wartime Letters to His Wife; and The Wit, Whimsy, and Wordplay of Bernard Rasof: Diverse Verse and Nonverse. The last collection is work by my late father (1918-2017).

WEB SITES

www.medievalhebrewpoetry.org, a nonprofit educational web site containing poems, articles, and other information about medieval Hebrew poetry

www.henryrasof.com, a web site containing most of the writing I have done since the 1960s

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Adjunct instructor, University of Denver University College, Colorado Community Colleges Online, Community College of Aurora, Arapaho Community College, Hofstra University/Yeshiva High School of Queens, and Brooklyn College

Adult-education instructor, Brooklyn College and Kingsborough Community College

Volunteer creative-writing teacher, Boulder Jewish Day School

READINGS AND EXHIBITS

Beyond Baroque, Venice, CA; La Mamelle, San Francisco, CA; Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY; Upsala College, East Orange, NJ; Soho Books, New York, NY; Studio of Creative Movement, New York, NY; Galleria “Il Punto,” Velletri, Italy.