Cathy Haruf, center, will appear Thursday at the Tattered Cover with Ryan Warner of Colorado Public Radio. Photo by John Moore.

Denver Center Theatre Company actors Chris Kendall, Billie McBride and Kathleen McCall will read from the late Colorado author Kent Haruf’s final book, Our Souls at Night, at a live radio event starting at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 11, at the Colfax Tattered Cover Book Store (2526 E. Colfax Ave.)

In addition, Ryan Warner of Colorado Public Radio’s Colorado Matters will lead a discussion with the author’s wife, Cathy Haruf, and editor, Gary Fisketjon.

Haruf was the author of the Plainsong Trilogy, which the DCPA adapted and staged as three live theatrical world premieres over a decade, He finished Our Souls at Night just days before he passed away in November 2014. Two months later, the DCPA staged the world premiere of Benediction.

The DCPA NewsCenter interviewed Kent Haruf just five days before he died. You can read the transcript here.

Haruf, a native of Pueblo and resident of Salida, published six works of fiction — including the best-selling Plainsong in 1999. While all of those books took place in the fictional eastern Colorado town of Holt, Haruf expressed an ongoing annoyance that  when people claimed Holt was based on Yuma.

“They’re not (Yuma stories),” Haruf told the DCPA’s John Moore. “I chose the look of that country as a specific place that I knew very well, and that I could use as the background setting for the stories I wanted to tell. But if you think about it, these stories could happen essentially anywhere.”

Our Souls at Night is again set in Holt, but it is unlike any book he has written before. It is inspired by his relationship with his wife. Haruf set out to write one short chapter every day for two months after he was diagnosed as terminal.

“In some ways, it felt as if that was what was keeping me alive,” he said. “It was something significant for me to get up for every day.”

Haruf joins a a number of other local authors who write about Western issues featured in the “Colorado Matters at the Tattered” series.

Seating for the event is limited and available on a first-come-first-served basis. Hear more about it here.

Selected previous coverage of Kent Haruf:
Kent Haruf: The complete final interview
Video, photos: DCPA celebrates life of Colorado novelist Kent Haruf
Benediction opens as a celebration of the ‘Precious Ordinary’
DCPA to celebrate Kent Haruf on Feb. 7
Bittersweet opening for ‘Benediction’ rehearsals
Kent Haruf, author of ‘Plainsong’ Trilogy, dies at age 71