Front Page
Red Steagall, Official Cowboy Poet of Texas, to Give a Special Recitation at TCU Press’s 'The Western Word' at Bosque Ranch Live
By TCU Press
Aug 30, 2026
Print this page
Email this article

The legendary singer, songwriter, and poet will be a featured guest in the TCU Press lounge at Taylor Sheridan’s Western celebration on September 12.

Fort Worth, Texas — TCU Press will welcome Red Steagall, the Official Cowboy Poet of Texas, for a special recitation at “The Western Word,” the Press’s featured lounge at Bosque Ranch Live on Saturday, September 12, 2026, in Weatherford, Texas. Steagall will take the floor in the TCU Press lounge at 4:00 p.m. for a featured cowboy tradition of reciting work from memory, including poetry and prose drawn from a lifetime spent honoring the American West.

Bosque Ranch Live is the Western music and culture event held at Taylor Sheridan’s Bosque Ranch outside Fort Worth. As a featured experience at the event, TCU Press — the literary heart of Texas since 1947 — is hosting “The Western Word,” an immersive Western reading lounge where guests browse books on Texas, Fort Worth, and the American West, meet the authors behind them, and take home a story of their own. Steagall’s recitation will be among the day’s highlights.

For more than five decades, Red Steagall has been one of the most beloved voices of the American West. A songwriter, recording artist, poet, broadcaster, and working rancher, he was named the Official Cowboy Poet of Texas by the state legislature in 1991 and later served as Texas Poet Laureate. In 2003 he was inducted into the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum’s Hall of Great Westerners — the museum’s highest honor, whose ranks include Will Rogers and Charles Goodnight. A fourth-generation Texan who ranches in Parker County, Steagall founded the acclaimed Red Steagall Cowboy Gathering in the Fort Worth Stockyards and has shared the cowboy code with audiences around the world through his music, his poetry, and his long-running broadcasts.

“Red Steagall doesn’t just write about the West — he lives it, and he has spent a lifetime keeping its stories alive,” said Shannon Houchin, marketing coordinator at TCU Press. “To have him share his work in our reading lounge, surrounded by the books that tell the story of Texas and the land, is exactly what ‘The Western Word’ is all about. We are honored to welcome him.”

Steagall’s books will be available for purchase and signing in the lounge, alongside the full TCU Press lineup of authors of Western and Texas titles. “The Western Word” will be open from noon to 6:00 p.m., with over a dozen authors rotating through the lounge, leading into the evening’s concerts.