.......Bryce Milligan is a modern troubadour, or, as Edward Hirsch called him recently, “a contemporary muse poet.” Bloomsbury Review called him a “literary wizard.” He calls himself a jack-of-all-genres, and it is true: he is a prolific poet, playwright, critic, novelist (for young adults) and children’s author. Novelist and writing guru John Gardner wrote of Milligan’s first book, Daysleepers & Other Poems, over twenty years ago:  “Milligan is a real poet, with the real poet’s sure voice, richness and variety, technical skill, and above all, delight in risk. . . .  He pulls out all the stops, and because he knows so surely what he’s talking about, and has an ear so unerring and an eye so partisan yet unblinking, he gets away with it.  Reading him is a joy.” Or as Daisy Aldan put it:  “Here is an ancient intuitive vision and unity brought to the modern experience.  This is a poet who will delight those who revere the word.”

       Milligan is also a musician and songwriter, a maker of guitars and other stringed instruments, an occasional sculptor, a teacher when he has to be, and an arts activist and organizer. Among other things he was a co-founder and long-time director of the Inter-American Bookfair, the Latina Letters annual conference, and two literary magazines. He is currently the publisher/editor of Wings Press in San Antonio, Texas.  He has been married for 32 years to Mary, a librarian and sometime co-editor. They have two children, accomplished scholars both.

     In Something About the Author, Milligan wrote: “Literature and writing are a great part of my life, but they are not everything. Creativity and craft are crucial, especially as they concern the idea of ‘making.’ Not much that is good in life just happens by accident. One makes a family, makes a song or poem, makes a book, makes a guitar, makes a garden, one even makes an old house continue to keep out the rain. This is why writers do not retire – to stop making is to stop being.”