Roberta Simpson Brown grew up on a farm near Russell Springs, KY, at the edge of Appalachia. Stories she heard there as a child and at Berea College as a student made her realize the importance of preserving storytelling. In 1999, she retired from teaching to devote her time to doing just that through her writing and performing.

Roberta has appeared throughout the United States at parks, workshops, libraries, schools, institutions, conferences, and festivals such as Louisville’s Corn Island Storytelling Festival—the largest of its kind in the world. She has written for Louisville magazine and has been featured numerous times on radio and television: on The Jane Norris Show, Louisville Tonight, National Public Radio, a Voice of America Network broadcast in Western Europe, Memphis Educational TV, and more.

She also appeared in the storytelling documentary Many Voices, One Heart, produced by Euphoria Productions of Hollywood and the Kentucky Center in Louisville. Roberta has been the featured performer at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville and a participating author at the National Storytelling Festival in Tennessee, the Kentucky Book Fair, the Southern Kentucky Festival of Books at Bowling Green, and many other events. One of her stories was featured on Lifetime TV’s Beyond Chance on February 23, 2002.

Roberta has three books and two audiocassettes published by August House Publishers. Her first book, The Walking Trees and Other Scary Stories, was nominated for the 1992 Parents’ Choice Award. The second, The Queen of the Cold-Blooded Tales, was nominated for the 1998 Soaring Eagle Award by the Wyoming State Library Association. The third is entitled Scared in School. Her audiocassettes, The Scariest Stories Ever and Scary Stories for All Ages, have been featured in National Public Radio’s catalog.

When not telling stories or writing, Roberta spends time reading, walking, shopping, and working for animal rights. She lives in Louisville with her husband, Lonnie, who is very supportive of her work and who “keeps the bad things away.”

The Halloween Show

A celebration of Halloween featuring a hair-raising ghost story; a look at the Corn Island Storytelling Festival; and a preview of Walden Theatre’s production of The Crucible, Arthur Miller’s play set during the Salem witch trials. (#605)