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A graduate of Indiana University and a native of the heartland,
Bruce stayed on in Texas after completing his MFA in 1996
to accept a full-time job as graduate coordinator of the MFA
program—a position in which he excelled for seven years.
During that time, Bruce continued to work steadily on his
poems, getting feedback from fellow poets in the program,
visiting professors and guest lecturers. In 2003, he won the
Felix Pollak Prize in poetry from University of Wisconsin
Press, who published his first collection, The Year We
Studied Women, and he won an esteemed Stegner Fellowship
from Stanford University, where he is today. "The writing
life can be a solitary endeavor," Bruce has observed. "What
the Michener Center offers is a real community in which to
develop your craft, a place where writers of all stripes come
together to discuss, debate, and challenge each other. The
friends I made there are still the ones I turn to, even years
later, for feedback and advice. I can't imagine having written
anything without them."
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