Born & raised in Chicago, U.S., Roberta Werdinger internally migrated to California in order to find herself. In the ensuing decades, she has found and then lost  herself many times, in the process uncovering new selves which she also lost, found, and re-designed. Shortly after completing a graduate degree in literature and creative writing, she lost her partner to cancer, and went to live on a mountaintop, learning the ways of nature and spirit as expressed by poetry. She then entered a Zen monastery and trained there for more than ten years, ordaining as a priest in 2000.

Since leaving the monastery “with gift-bearing hands,” she has made her home in rural Northern California, making her way as an English teacher, freelance writer, and editor. She has been a music programmer and served as Poet Laureate of Ukiah, California from 2018-21. She has facilitated groups with Integral Life online on Integral themes in literature.