Stuart Kestenbaum, the 5th Maine State Poet Laureate, is the author of many collections of poems, most recently, THINGS SEEM TO KEEP BREAKING (Deerbrook Editions, 2021), ONLY NOW (Deerbrook Editions, 2014), PRAYERS & RUN-ON SENTENCES (Deerbrook Editions, 2007), HOW TO START OVER (Deerbrook Editions, 2019), and Pilgrimage (Coyote Love Press). He has also written The View from Here (Brynmorgen Press), a book of brief essays on craft and community. Stuart Kestenbaum has written and spoken widely on craft making and creativity, and his poems and writing have appeared in numerous small press publications and magazines including Tikkun, the Sun, the Beloit Poetry Journal, and others and on Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac. He was the director of the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine for over twenty-five years, and was elected an honorary fellow of the American Craft Council in 2006.