Bob Hicok is Central’s writer-in-residence this year, and he’ll be speaking Thursday night in the Cox-Snow Recital Hall. Hicok is the author of several collections of poems, and won the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry in 1995 and had a book named a 1997 ALA Booklist Notable Book of the Year. He’s also been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and he received the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry from the Library of Congress. Hicok tells KNIA/KRLS News that he started writing at 20 when his heart was broken, and hasn’t stopped since. His most recent book is a finalist for the National Book Critics Award and in fact, he is missing the awards ceremony to read in Central’s Writers Reading series.