The Elk in the Glade

“Side by side with the paintings, Whitacre’s book serves as a deeply personal yet relatable account of one woman’s life and turn-of-the-century lifestyle—and clearly demonstrates why this talented painter and pioneer stands as someone to remember.” —BookLife by Publishers Weekly

"Bruce E. Whitacre's ability to capture this support network and the extraordinary efforts of Jennie Hicks in a manner that reaches beyond the usual literary or arts reader makes her story appealing to a much wider audience.” —Diane Donovan, The Midwest Book Review.

"Bruce E. Whitacre's collection, The Elk in the Glade, is a lovely and loving celebration of his remarkable great grandmother Jennie Hicks's life and art, and an inspiring example of how a woman's artistic discipline gave her the courage and insight to transcend the hardships of the Nebraska frontier. " —Ladette Randolph, Editor in Chief, Ploughshares 

"It's one family's story, an intimate portrait full of channeled memories merging into myth, set against a backdrop provided by the self-taught painter whom Whitacre takes as his muse: his own great grandmother, the prairie matriarch whose dreamy works focused exclusively on an imagined elsewhere. " —Thomas Reese Gallagher, Managing Editor, Willa Cather Review

"Jennie Hicks kept hidden deeply in her heart the memory of a fleck of brilliant red paint from an impromptu art lesson when she was a young woman just starting her life. That tiny gem of radiance lay dormant, eclipsed by years of The World of Pioneer and hardship and loss. Taking up her brush again as a woman worn down from the trials of life, the self-taught Jennie would build up a following for her oil paintings that are cherished by family, friends and collectors around the world." —Patty Scarborough, Nebraska Artist

"These poems center on the Nebraska painter Jennie Hicks. The poems admit, ""no woman was ever a willing pioneer,"" as Hicks painted everything that was not the prairie landscape: ""purple mountains blue lakes green trees/elk lions sailboats stones."" She revels in the foreign beauty of oranges arriving in a wooden crate: ""Golden spheres burned into view, sweet and strange."" The speaker accepts that the losses, the regrets, the blames in his great grandmother's story anchor ""what I've been and where I've gone,"" and this is why The Elk in the Glade is such a good read—those anchors resonate with the reader's own regret and triumph, where we've gone and who we've been." —Lynn McGee, Tracks

“Whitacre ends his book with an encouraging image of relationships and shared memories and I wonder if this is why so many of us find family history so enthralling. Our links to the past can tell us everything about what we ourselves will eventually leave behind.” —Benjamin Schmitt, At the Inkwell