Jessica D. Thompson to Participate in the Kentucky Book Festival with “Daybreak and Deep”

August 18, 2023

What will Kentucky Book Festival visitors find on your table?

Visitors will find Jessica D. Thompson’s first full-length poetry collection entitled, “Daybreak and Deep,” (Kelsay Books, 2022). “Daybreak and Deep” was a finalist in the American Book Fest Best Books of 2022 for Narrative Poetry. “Daybreak and Deep” was also a finalist in the 2023 da Vinci Eye Awards for its beautiful cover art.

Whom do you invite to stop by? Who will benefit from reading your book?

All lovers of poetry (especially free verse) are invited to stop by. Those interested in themes of love and loss will find much to appreciate in this collection. Also, those who find solace in nature and those who can appreciate the healing brought about by being a lover of the outdoors will resonate with the poems found within. Some readers of this collection have stated that these poems remind them of the work of Mary Oliver.

Could you please tell us something curious about you and/or your book?

In a former lifetime, I belonged to a caving club and spent many years exploring and mapping wild caves in the karst regions of Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

Is this your first time participating in Kentucky Book Festival? If yes – what are you looking forward to the most? If you’ve participated before – what was your favorite experience at the Festival?

This is my first year of participating in the Kentucky Book Festival. I’m most looking forward to meeting fellow authors and prospective readers who share her love of writing, reading, and collecting books!

For over a decade, Jessica D. Thompson served as a crisis office volunteer as well as a hospital and legal advocate for a battered women’s shelter. Daybreak and Deep is a rich and graceful assembly of requiems, for family and home places, for a spouse. Jessica D. Thompson honors, then abandons the innocence of childhood and the prescribed gender roles imbued with religion and tradition.