Carol Frost to read works in ‘Lair

West Virginia University's 2011 Sturm Writer-in-Residence Carol Frost will be reading from her works in the Gold Ballroom in the Mountainlair at 7:30 tonight.

Every year WVU invites a writer of national reputation to be WVU's Sturm Writer-in-Residence. The specialty behind the writer varies each year, as the university circulates between a poetry, fiction, and non fiction writer. This year, WVU will have award-winning Carol Frost fill the role of Sturm Writer-in-Residence.

Frost is an award-winning author and English professor at Rollins College and is the author of multiple collections of poetry, including "Love and Scorn: New and Selected Poems," "The Queen's Desertion," and "The Salt Lesson."

Her poetry often makes biblical references or allusions to literary works and authors such as Shakespeare. Her poetry focuses on the human body, and things of the natural world. The poems are elaborate – describing the scenes before her in the tiniest details.

In her collection "Honeycomb," Frost focuses on her experiences with her mother fighting Alzheimer's disease. Frost elegantly enraptures her audiences with her ability to apply human emotions and experiences to the natural world.

"I think she is someone who is interested in nature and also someone who has worked with poems that allude to or concern elements of the bible or poems that concern figures out of Shakespeare plays. She is very steeped in the traditions of poetry, said director of WVU's Creative Writing program Mark Brazaitis.

Frost has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, multiple PEN and Pushcart Awards, and the Elliston and Poets Prizes for her work.

Frost has taught at Hartwick College, Washington University and Wichita State University as well as having multiple teaching residencies at the Vermont Studio Center. Frost founded and directed the Catskill Poetry Workshop at Rollins College for fifteen years and now is the Director for "Winter with the Writers" program, a festival of the literary arts.

Along with her reading, Frost will also be working with 12 WVU creative writing students during the rest of the week. The students were selected by a campus-wide writing competition in which contestants submitted personal works of poetry.

According to Brazaitis the twelve students are selected based on their submitted works.

"It's competitive. The students submit a manuscript, in this case a group of their poems, and a committee composed of members of the Creative Writing faculty look at the manuscripts and decides on the 12 most worthy manuscripts and invites those students to participate in the workshop," Brazaitis said.

A reception and book signing will follow her reading and the event is free and open to the public.