Brucer Berger photographed at home in Aspen in 2005. (Aspen Times file) Bruce Berger, author of “The Complete Half-Aspenite”and acclaimed works about the Southwest, died Wednesday at aged 82. (Aspen Times file) Bruce Berger, the beloved writer, poet and fixture at Aspen Music Festival & School concerts, died Wednesday morning. The cause was complications from lung disease, according to his publisher and literary executor, James Anderson. Berger was 82 and died in Denver in hospice care. “Bruce was the unofficial dean of Aspen arts and letters,” Anderson said in an announcement, “and his Aspen cabin was a legendary gathering place for writers, physicists and musicians for more than 50 years.”