Stewart Monti was born 1951 in the Appalachian mountains of Bland, Virginia. A military brat, they were at his grandmothers home while his father was fighting in the Korean War. He attended both military high school and the United States Air Force Academy, flew C-130E’s for 2,000 hours all over the world, and had other Air Force jobs to retire as Major. He earned two master’s degrees, helping his Air Force career and his period as an adjunct instructor for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, teaching on both graduate and undergraduate levels. He started writing poetry early, distributing booklets of poems to members of his social clubs, and doing readings regularly to different local organizations. Compiling some of these poems, he published his first book, 135 Poems for Today, in 2017. His second book, Mary and Sir Edward, evolved from a narrative poem, and published in 2023. Samples of his poems have hung in a church thrift shop, a friend’s hair salon, a couple of church kitchen, a railway museum, and numerous private homes in the Greater Sanford NC area, where he now lives with his wife and son. Many of the poems are still there.