Description

Reading the Air – PRE-ORDER

Book Description:

In the spring of 1906, under cover of darkness, lovestruck sixteen-year-old Will Ingram crept from his Missouri farm after a violent confrontation with his father. So began an epic, eight-year journey of mishap and misadventure as young Will “rode the rails,” working his way across the American Midwest. Bronc busting, trick riding, and roping with Buffalo Bill at Oklahoma’s 101 Ranch and Wild West show, running a locomotive engine off the track in Kansas, and drinking, gambling, and gold-panning up at Cripple Creek, Colorado, before eventually settling on an Alberta homestead. His children knew little about their father’s past, and almost nothing of those eight lost years. What was it that drove him away, never to see his family again? 

Luckily, in 1914, he wrote it all down. Reading the Air is a granddaughter’s tribute to a grandfather rediscovered through poetry. Brenda Gunn reads between the lines to reimagine the extraordinary tale of a seemingly ordinary man, inspired by a poem he wrote and found the courage to share.

Reading the Air is a vivid reimagining of a young man’s epic, eight-year odyssey through the lawless American Midwest, rediscovered by his granddaughter through the long-lost poetry he left behind. 

“Reading the Air by Brenda Gunn is an engaging and captivating mish mash of poems, narratives, and text-based snapshots. This collection is at times brutally honest, at times funny, and at times tragic, but it is never boring and never strays far from reminding the reader how precious and fleeting our short time on this planet really is and how incredibly important it is to maintain bonds of friendship and family as we go through our own personal journeys.”

– Leif Gregersen

“Men tell their own stories…when they want to. Reading the Air gifts [a] taciturn man with a timeline, and therein are his unspoken feelings and profound allegiances. This is a life that has taken three generations to write and is now its own legacy in verse.”

– Marcia Johnson, Edmonton Stroll of Poets

“The work is so evocative. I loved it. [Gunn] captured a wonderful cowboy voice in language that is so true to the story. The imagined thoughts, the people, the times and the history were all so authentic. A well-realized book!”

– Katherine Sutherland, author of Awakening, Balancing Act, Shadow Girls in the Spotlight, Saying Goodbye is Easy, and the Gypsy Woman’s Stories

Author: Brenda Gunn

Publisher: Wild Skies Press

Format: Paperback & Ebook

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-997770-13-8

E-Book ISBN:  978-1-997770-14-5

Size: 5.5 x 8.5 in | Pages: 142

Publication Date: June, 18 2026