Help us welcome poet Bruce Whitacre to Red Cloud! Whitacre will be reading poetry from his book The Elk in the Glade: The World of Pioneer and Painter Jennie Hicks. The book celebrates the life of Jennie Hicks, a landscape painter from rural Nebraska who also happens to be Whitacre's great-grandmother. Hicks' paintings will be displayed at the Dawson County Historical Society and Museum in Lexington, Nebraska, from February 10 – August 31, 2023. Join us for this free reading in our art gallery, and stick around for a book-signing immediately following the talk.

About the Author

Bruce E. Whitacre is an author whose book The Elk in the Glade: The World of Pioneer and Painter Jennie Hicks, from Crown Rock Media, is a Publishers Weekly editors pick. His Good Housekeeping will be out in 2023 from Poets Wear Prada. His poems have appeared in Big City Lit, RFD, North of Oxford, Poets Wear Prada’s The Rainbow Project (nominated for Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net), and WorldLiterature Today. His work is included in the anthologies American Graveyard, Brownstone Poets 2021, and I Wanna be Loved by You: Poems on Marilyn Monroe, as well as The Strategic Poet. Prior to focusing on writing, Whitacre had an extensive management career in publishing, the United Nations World Food Programme, and in various roles in theatre, ranging from literary manger to producer to executive director of a fundraising organization supporting major regional theatres through programs in arts education and promoting equity, diversity and inclusion. He is a native of Kearney, Nebraska, a graduate of UNL, and has an MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He lives in New York City. More at www.brucewhitacre.com.