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Bernice Slote, granddaughter of Nebraska homesteaders, was born November 17, 1913, in Hickman, Nebraska. Valedictorian of her high school class, she graduated from Nebraska Wesleyan University with high distinction in 1933. She taught English at Ord High School from 1934 until 1941 and also played the piano for church and Sunday school, taught girls' gymnastics and trained the cheering squads.

In 1941 Slote earned her masters degree in English at the University of Nebraska, working primarily with Professor L.C. Wimberley; she continued graduate work at the University of Michigan where she earned two Hopwood Awards for writing poetry. Despite encouragement from her professors, she decided not to earn her Ph.D.; instead she taught English at the Nebraska City High School from 1941-1942. From 1942-1946 she was Instructor of English, Director of the Library, and the Assistant to the Dean at Norfolk Junior College.

In 1946 she was invited to join the faculty of the English Department at the University of Nebraska, where she taught literature and writing. Her poems had begun to appear in leading journals around the country: The Atlantic Monthly, Michigan Quarterly Review, Voices, Poetry Chap-Book, etc. In 1963 she became editor of the The Prairie Schooner, a responsibility she retained until her retirement in 1980. She died in Lincoln on February 22, 1983.

Slote was well known as editor, poet, teacher, scholar, and critic. Her first book Keats and the Dramatic Principle (1958) won the Explicator Award for the best book of literary analysis in English or American Literature. Her second book Start with the Sun (1960) with James E. Miller, Jr. and Karl Shapiro, won the Chap-Book Award from the Poetry Society of America for an outstanding work in the field of poetry criticism. Her three text-book anthologies, The Dimensions of Poetry (1962), The Dimensions of Short Story (1964), and The Dimensions of Literature, (1967), with James E. Miller, Jr. were widely used and well received. She edited Myth and Symbol: Critical Approaches and Applications (1963), and Literature and Society: Nineteen Essays (1964), and wrote numerous articles on literary subjects.

She is best known for her work on Willa Cather. Her edition of Cather's first book April Twilights (1903) in 1967 and her collection of Cather's early writings, The Kingdom of Art (1967) mark the beginning of modern Willa Cather studies. Editions of other early works by Cather followed: Uncle Valentine and Other Stories (1973), and Alexander's Bridge (1977).

Editor of several collections of scholarly essays by various hands, she published studies on Cather's works and delivered lectures around the country on various topics. Awarded honorary doctorates from Nebraska Wesleyan University and Midland College, she received a distinguished teaching award in 1978 and the first Award for Outstanding Research and Creativity in 1979 from the University of Nebraska. She reluctantly refused a Senior Fellowship at Radcliff College in 1977, but accepted the prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities Senior Research Fellowship in 1978. Among other awards she received were the National Foundation on the Arts Editor's Award in 1970 and Nebraska Library Association's Mari Sandoz Award in 1974.

In addition to writing, editing, lecturing, teaching, advising graduate students, and supervising doctoral candidates, Slote also moderated a KUON-TV discussion panel (Conversation Piece). She was also active on the Board of Governors of the Willa Cather Memorial in Red Cloud, the Nebraska State Poet Laureate Commission, and the Western Literature Association. At the University of Nebraska Press, she served as an advisory editor.