Bruce Ducker

Bruce Ducker (born 1938) is an American poet novelist, and short story writer.

Life
Ducker was born in New York, and was educated at Dartmouth College (A.B., 1960) and Columbia University (M.A., 1963; LL.B., 1964). He was admitted to the Colorado state bar in 1964. In 1979, he founded the Denver law firm Ducker, Montgomery, Lewis & Bess P.C. He has practiced corporate law most of his life, and has written law-review articles on business law. He has had a career in business as well as law, serving as general counsel and president of major companies, and serving as a director of several corporations.

Ducker has written eight novels and a volume of short stories. His poetry and short fiction appear in such journals as The New Republic, The Yale Review, Poetry, Commonwealth, The Southern Review and The Hudson Review. Recent stories have appeared in The Missouri Review and The Sewanee Review. He is also known as a writer of fly-fishing stories, and his work is carried by Gray's Sporting Journal and The Big Sky Journal. He was early recognized by the Knopf editor Gordon Lish and featured in Lish's influential literary magazine, The Quarterly.

Ducker, who in Colorado, is a jazz pianist and a licensed instrument pilot.

Writing
Critics have called Ducker’s books “an evocative counterpart of loaded terms” (Boston Globe), “understated, elegant prose” (Denver Post), “written so allusively, so lyrically, so in tune with the quotidian” (L. A. Times), and “vivid, compelling and beautifully crafted” (Dave Barry). Though his books as a body are difficult to generalize, since they fall into several genres, his work often addresses the setting of the individual against the structures of wealth and business. Critics have compared his work to the writing of Louis Auchincloss and John Marquand.

Recognition
He received the Colorado Book Award in 1995 for Lead Us Not Into Penn Station (also short-listed for the American Library Best Book Award) and was nominated for The Pulitzer Prize for his 1994 novel Marital Assets.

He has long been listed in Who's Who (America, World, American Law, and Arts), SuperLawyers and The Best Lawyers in America.