Creative Writing: 2006-2007 Competition Judges
Peggy Shumaker
Poetry
Peggy Shumaker grew up in Tucson, and earned her M.F.A. in Creative Writing
from the University of Arizona. She has received many honors and awards for her
teaching and writing, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
in Poetry and the Usibelli Distinguished Award for Teaching. As a writer-inresidence
for the Arizona Commission on the Arts, Peggy worked with and
benefited various sectors of the community. Shumaker’s collection of poetry and
works of non-fiction have been published throughout the world. Her latest book
of poetry, Blaze, was written in collaboration with painter Kesler Woodward. Her
next book of non-fiction, Just Breathe Normally, will be published in 2007. Peggy is
Professor Emerita from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where she was Chair of
the English Department and Director for the M.F.A. program in Creative Writing.
She continues to make her home in Fairbanks, Alaska, where she teaches in the
low-residency MFA Rainier Writing Workshop. A full resume of Peggy’s many
works and accomplishments may be found at www.peggyshumaker.com.
Maureen Aitken
Fiction
Maureen Aitken’s fiction has won awards from Ireland’s Fish Short Story Prize,
The Loft Mentor Series and The SASE/Jerome Foundation. Her short story
collection has been a finalist for several national contests, including the Bakeless
Prize and the Iowa Short Fiction Award. Stories in the collection have earned two
Pushcart Prize nominations and have been published in journals such as Prairie
Schooner, The Journal, Night Train, Puerto del Sol and the international anthology,
The Bering Strait and Other Stories. She has received scholarships to attend the
Taos Summer Writing Conference and the Vermont Studio Center. She teaches
writing at the University of Minnesota, where she received her MFA degree. She is
also the co-founder of Orchid: A Literary Review.
Charles F. Burm
Essay
Charles F. Burm teaches English and Creative Writing at Southeastern Community
College in West Burlington, Iowa. His poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, and essays
have appeared in Cabbages & Kings, Flower City Review, Frantic Egg, Ganargua
Review, Gertrude, Harpur Palate, Jigsaw, The Monroe Doctrine, and other print and
online journals and magazines. He has held editorial positions with several
publications, and he has served in various roles with community arts organizations
in Iowa and New York.
Margaret Rozga
One-Act Play/Scripts
A professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha, Margaret (Peggy)
Rozga has published poems and essays in many literary journals, including
Nimrod, The Humanist, The Rambler, Out of Line, and the Porcupine Literary Arts
Magazine. She was a resident at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology and at the
Ragdale Foundation. Her play, March On Milwaukee, dramatizes events of the
1967-68 Milwaukee civil rights campaign for open housing that included over 200
consecutive nights of demonstrations. The play’s premier production will be at the
University of Wisconsin-Waukesha Lunt-Fontanne Theater in April 2007
