Peggy Shumaker is the daughter of two deserts—the Sonoran Desert where she grew up and the subarctic desert of interior Alaska where she lives now. She has been honored by the Rasmuson Foundation as its Distinguished Artist, served as Alaska State Writer Laureate, and received a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is the author of eight books of poetry and the lyrical memoir Just Breathe Normally. Professor emerita from University of Alaska Fairbanks, Shumaker teaches in the Rainier Writing Workshop MFA at Pacific Lutheran University. She serves on the boards of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize, the Alaska Arts and Culture Foundation, and the Storyknife Residency Foundation. She is Editor of the Boreal Books series (an imprint of Red Hen Press), Editor of the Alaska Literary Series at University of Alaska Press, Poetry Editor for Persimmon Tree, and Contributing Editor for Alaska Quarterly Review.