Community

« Click here to go back

Stuart Kestenbaum

Stuart Kestenbaum, the former director of the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine for 27 years, is credited with establishing innovative programs combining craft and writing and craft and emerging technologies. He is also widely known for helping to put Haystack on the map as one of the world’s preeminent destinations for artists. He received his B.A. in Comparative Religion from Hamilton College in 1973 and went on to attend Haystack in 1975. Prior to arriving at Haystack, Kestenbaum served as an associate, and later assistant director with the Maine Arts Commission. He is the author of the poetry collections Only Now (Deerbook Editions, 2014), Prayers & Run-on Sentences (Deerbook, 2007), House of Thanksgiving (Deerbrook, 2003), and Pilgrimage (Coyote Love Press, 1990)—and a collection of essays: The View From Here (Brynmorgen Press, 2012). He is a former poet laureate of the state of Maine.