Alexandria Peary serves as New Hampshire Poet Laureate and is the recipient of a 2020 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. She is the author of eight previous books, including the poetry collections Control Bird Alt Delete, The Water Draft, Lid to the Shadow, and Fall Foliage Called Bathers & Dancers. She holds a MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, a MFA in Poetry from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a PhD in English/Composition from the University of New Hampshire. A professor in the English Department at Salem State University and recipient of the 2021 Outstanding Faculty Award, Alexandria Peary specializes in mindful writing to help others manage writing apprehension. She is the architect and host of the popular mindful writing webinar at the National Council of Teachers of English as well as the author of Prolific Moment: Theory and Practice of Mindfulness for Writing and the TEDx talk, "How Mindfulness Can Transform the Way You Write."As state poet laureate, her signature initiatives to date include the 2020 and 2021 editions of COVID Spring: Granite State Pandemic Poems, the 2021 North Country Young Writers' Festival, Submit-a-thons for adult and teen writers, mindful writing workshops, and the establishment of the Jack & Hannah McCarthy Scholarship. Currently, she is collaborating with teen editors from across the state on a new online literary magazine.