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Meet Our Judges for 2023!

MORGAN GRAYCE WILLOW has published several poetry collections and chapbooks, including: Dodge & Scramble, Between, Silk, Oddly Enough, The Maps are Words. As essayist, Morgan's work has appeared in Third Coast, Imagination & Place: Cartography, and the anthology Riding Shotgun: Women Write About Their Mothers (Borealis Books). Her essay "(Un)Document(ing)" from Water-Stone Review #22 was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. As book artist, Morgan exhibited her artist's book Collage for Mina Loy at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts (2016) and contributed poetry and visual art to the Quilt, Not Quilt exhibition and its accompanying chapbook Stitch by Stitch (2018). Morgan is a teaching artist with The Loft Literary Center and COMPAS Arts.

Morgan is IPA's judge for the Lucille Morgan Wilson Poetry Award.
JOHN SIBLEY WILLIAMS is the author of seven poetry collections, including Scale Model of a Country at Dawn (Cider Press Review Poetry Award),The Drowning House (Elixir Press Poetry Award), As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press), and Summon (JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize). A twenty-six-time Pushcart nominee, John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Wabash Prize for Poetry, Philip Booth Award, Phyllis Smart-Young Prize, and Laux/Millar Prize. He serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review and founder of the Caesura Poetry Workshop series. Previous publishing credits include Best American Poetry, Yale Review, Verse Daily, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, and TriQuarterly.

John is judging the new Traditional Forms contest which includes the ghazal, pantoum, sonnet and villanelle.

GLENN LYVERS is an American writer and editor living in Johnstown, PA. His most recent publication is Harborton, a poetry chapbook from the Eastern Shore of Virginia. His poetry and fiction have received numerous awards and been published internationally in numerous reviews, including works in Calliope Nerve, Camroc Press Review, Chronogram, Clockwise Cat, Contrary, Danse Macabre, East Coast Literary Review, Everyday Poets Magazine, Everyday Weirdness, Flutter Poetry Journal, Leaves of Ink, Mad Swirl, Red River Review, San Pedro River Review, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Shoots and Vines, The Blue Hour, The Houston Literary Review, The Legendary, The Stray Branch, Undertow Tanka Review, Verse-Virtual, Wilderness House Literary Review, Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores, Word Catalyst Magazine, and elsewhere.
Lyvers has edited 150+ literary journal issues including Haiku Journal, Three Line Poetry, Poetry Quarterly, 50 Haikus, Tanka Journal. He has also edited more than 75 books and chapbooks.
Lyvers serves the writing community as the Masthead at Prolific Press Inc. For more information, see his website at glennlyvers.com
Glenn will judge the Haiku competition.

TIMOTHY FAY of rural Anamosa formerly published (and printed) the "Wapsipinicon Almanac," an annual collection of essays, fiction, reviews and an occasional poem. The "Almanac explored" various regional issues and circulated for 30 years (1988-2018). Fay lives on his family's heritage farm and continues to publish a limited number of regional titles, mainly dealing with historical topics and land use concerns. He also plays in the Celtic music duo "Lost in the Bog," performing at various local venues.

Tim will judge the Grant Wood Country Poetry Award in 2023.
CHRISTINE BOLDT, a retired librarian, has lived in Texas for forty years. She was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nigeria in the 1960s, and lived in Italy during the 1970s. Christine has published in Christianity and Crisis, the Washington Post, the Dallas Morning News, and Working Mother. Her poetry has appeared in Christian Century; Windhover; the Texas Poetry Calendar; Enigmatist; Bearing the Mask; Adam, Eve, and the Riders of the Apocalypse; the Poetry Society of Texas Book of the Year; the Red River Review; Ilyia's Honey; and Encore. Her collection Missing, One Muse: The Poetry of Sylvia St. Stevens was selected as the winner of the 2018 ASPS Morris Memorial Chapbook Competition. Her book, For Every Tatter, has been published by Lamar University Literary Press.

Christine is judging the National/World Events contest.
DOROTHIA ROHNER is a full time children's book author and illustrator. Previously, she studied fine art, graphic design, and illustration at several universities. With an interest in both science and art, she ultimately graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in Biological Pre-Medical Illustration. Throughout her various careers as an illustrator and artist, she pursued writing children's books in her free time. Her first authored picture book, I Am Goose! (Clarion-2020) was listed in the Bank Street College of Education, Best Books of 2021-Humor Section. In 2022, her debut author/illustrator book, A Wish for Twins, The Tale of Our Two Miracles, (Doubleday, Penguin Random House) was published. She enjoys working with children and sharing her passions for writing, art, nature and imagination. Visit dorothiarohner.com to learn more.

Dorothia is judging the Poetry For Children contest.
Currently splitting her time between Conifer and Frederick, JULIE CUMMINGS is known for her contributions to the literary world through many facets. In addition to being the President of the National Federation Of State Poetry Societies, Ms. Cummings also facilitates and conducts workshops on various writing topics on a regular basis and hosts a monthly open mic on Zoom. Ms. Cummings' poems have been published in several anthologies over the course of the past several years. She has a book, Ride Of My Life, available on amazon and direct purchase. She recently retired from teaching middle school.

Julie will judge the Humorous Verse category.
MICHAEL CARRINO received his M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College. He is retired from the State University College at Plattsburgh, New York, where he taught English and Creative Writing for twenty-five years. He was co-founder and poetry editor of the Saranac Review. His publications include Some Rescues, (New Poets Series, Inc.) Under This Combustible Sky, (Mellen Poetry Press), Café Sonata, (Brown Pepper Press), Autumn's Return to the Maple Pavilion (Conestoga Press), By Available Light (Guernica Editions), Always Close, Forever Careless (Kelsay Books), Until I've Forgotten, Until I'm Stunned (Kelsay Books), and In No Hurry (Kelsay Books). He lives with his wife on the shores of Lake Champlain in upstate New York.

Michael will judge the contest for College Students.
ROBERT SCHINZEL grew up as a rolling stone, a gypsy nomad, moving frequently when his father's work took the family from town to town and overseas, offering him a look at the world as a kaleidoscope of divergent lifestyles and views. With a master's degree in geography, Bob worked for the Forest Service in watershed management, fought wildfires, then left for a 33-year career in law enforcement as both detective sergeant in Sacramento and federal agent and administrator in various states and Panama. After retirement, he began writing poetry to capture the strange visions bottled up inside. He sees humans as the animals they are, with quirks and eccentricities, ugliness and beauty, savagery and compassion. His poems show the close relationships between nature and human behavior. He is a member of the Denton Poets Assembly and the Poetry Society of Texas. His poems have won numerous national contests and appear in over two dozen anthologies. He is author of two poetry books of his own: Into the Fire - A Cop's View in Verse which chronicles his thoughts on the state of law enforcement and firefighting in American society, and Westbound 380 - A Highway Through Time, which won the Fort Worth Poetry Society's William D. Barney Chapbook Contest in 2019. Bob encourages everyone to give poetry a chance, maybe by putting a few words of their own to paper.

Robert is judging the K-4 and 5-8th Grade Contests in the Student Division.


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