What will Kentucky Book Festival visitors find on your table?

In Roberta Schultz’s fourth chapbook, Asking Price, questions are key to examining humanity’s relationship to the planet we live on.  Who eats what?  When comes another dragon’s charm for pain?  Why don’t we ever see a live armadillo? Join the bargaining war as a couple haggles with a reluctant seller over the sale of his home. Consider why some of us slash glyphs that forbid while others sail their ragged boats forward to rescue the drowning.

(2023 from Workhorse Writers.)

Underscore is one poet’s attempt to explore the currents that swirl underneath the surface of everyday life.  When do our voices breathe in unison, when do they diverge into counterpoint?

How do the events of our lives chorus into through-composed pieces without reprise or return to familiar themes? When do we finally sing along with the unmistakable music of the spheres?  In her first full-length collection, Roberta Schultz begins by looking “in instead of up” at the cadences we underline and define as our own.

(Dos Madres Press, 2022)

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

I would love to talk to poetry lovers as well as those who think they might not like poetry.  I’ve had some interesting conversations with folks who thought maybe poetry was not for them, but after reading a few narrative or humorous poems, thought differently.

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

To look at me, you’d never guess I was once a lifeguard. Or that I am also a drum circle facilitator and a song writer.  You’d probably guess that I was once a high school English teacher, though.

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?

I’ve never attended this particular book festival, so I am really excited about actually being included as a poet.

Roberta Schultz, author of four chapbooks and one full-length collection, is a songwriter, teacher, and poet from Wilder, KY. In Asking Price, questions are key to examining humanity’s relationship to the planet we live on.