An award-winning author will spend next week on the West Virginia University campus reading from his works and leading writing workshops as the 2004 Virginia Butts Sturm Writer-in-Residence in WVU s Department of English.

Franklin Burroughs will give a reading at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 25, in the Mountainlair Gold Ballroom. He will sign copies of his books following the reading, which is free and open to the public.

He will also meet Tuesday, Oct. 26, through Thursday, Oct. 28, with 12 students selected for the Virginia Butts Sturm Writer-in-Residence Workshop.

Burroughs is the Pushcart Prize-winning author of two books,Billy Watsons Croker SackandThe River Home: A Return to the Carolina Low Country.Billy Watsons Croker Sackwas selected as an Editors Choice by The Book of the Month Club and reprinted by the Quality Paperback Club.

His essays have twice been included in the prestigious Best American Essays annual anthology series. His essays have also appeared in many literary magazines, including The Kenyon Review, The Georgia Review, Harpers Magazine, The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review and The American Scholar.

A South Carolina native, Burroughs taught for more than 30 years at Bowdoin College, where he was the Harrison McCann Professor of the English Language. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Creative Nonfiction, The American Scholars EditorsPrize and has been included in the Norton Anthology of Nature Writing.

The Virginia Butts Sturm Writer-in-Residence program brings a nationally renowned writer to campus each fall to give a public reading and provide guidance to students aspiring to be authors. The residency is made possible through an endowment from the late Albert Lee and Virginia Butts Sturm.