Readings

City Poet Laureate Hosts Lit Events

Barbara Arnold, photos by Andrea Paulseth |

Bruce Taylor
Bruce Taylor

City of Eau Claire Poet Laureate Bruce Taylor, now in his second term, is hosting ongoing events for poets and writers, readers, and listeners.

Writers Read occurs at 7pm the second Tuesday of each month at the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library. The next installment, which is an Open Read, is scheduled for Tuesday, April 8. Writers Read typically features either individual writers, such as Wisconsin Poet Laureate Max Garland or local author John Hildebrand; groups of writers, such as the Eau Claire Writers group or writers from area middle schools; or themed evenings, such as “Love and Other Disasters” and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

Another Taylor-led effort, Third Thursdays @ the Gallery, happens at 5pm on the third Thursday of every month at the Janet Carson Gallery inside the Eau Claire Regional Arts Center. The next one (April 17) will feature Amy Monticello, a writer and visiting assistant professor at UW-Eau Claire. She is the author of the 2012 essay collection Close Quarters and blogs at tensquaremiles.wordpress.com.

In an email, Bruce writes that there is probably more writing than ever going on now in the Chippewa Valley, some of which is regularly on display in the Local Lit feature of Volume One. (Check out Page 52 in this very issue for the latest.) More importantly, he writes, the Chippewa Valley is full of dedicated and attentive readers and listeners.

Bruce is currently writing a lot and working on a new collection entitled Other Versions, which will come out this year. He and his wife, Patti See, are always collaborating; learn more about them at www.uwec.edu/English/about/taylorb.htm and www.uwec.edu/ASC/about/patti.htm.