Award-winning poet, novelist on deck in Frostic Reading Series

Contact: Mark Schwerin
Photo of Deb Olin .

Unferth

KALAMAZOO—A poet who was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award will be featured this month as part of the Fall 2013 Gwen Frostic Reading Series.

Deb Olin Unferth will read at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 25, in 157-159 Bernhard Center. The event is free and open to the public.

Deb Olin Unferth

Unferth is the author of the memoir "Revolution: The year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the Sandinistas," a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a New York Times Critics Choice award.

Hailed as a "virtuosic one-woman show" by Time Out New York, "Revolution" tells the humorous and poignant story of the year the author ran away from college with her idealistic boyfriend and followed him to Nicaragua to join the Sandinistas. Despite their earnest commitment to a myriad of revolutionary causes and to each other, Deb and her boyfriend find themselves unwanted, unhelpful and unprepared as they bop around Central America, looking for "revolution jobs."

Unferth's writing credits also include the story collection "Minor Robberies" and the novel "Vacation," which was winner of the Cabell First Novel Award. Her work has appeared in Harper's Magazine, the New York Times, McSweeney's, the Boston Review and elsewhere. Unferth has received three Pushcart Prizes and a Creative Capital Grant for Innovative Literature.

About the series

The Frostic Reading Series presents acclaimed creative writers from across the nation and beyond. Every year, a diverse range of readings that encompasses poetry, fiction, nonfiction and drama attract both on- and off-campus audiences.

For more information, visit wmich.edu/english/events/frostic.html.