Brenda Hillman, author ofPieces of Air in the Epic,will give a public reading Wednesday, April 12, at West Virginia University .

The free public reading, sponsored by the Department of English in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, is from 7:30-9 p.m. in the Robinson Reading Room of the Wise Library.

Hillman is the author of seven collections of poetry,White Dress,Fortress,Death Tractates,”Bright Existence,”Loose Sugar”andCascadia”all from Wesleyan Press.

She is also the author of three chapbooks,Coffee, 3 A.M.,Autumn SojournandThe Firecage.She is a former recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Hillman received a bachelor’s degree from Pomona College and a master’s degree from the University of Iowa .

She serves on the faculty of Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, Calif., where she teaches in the undergraduate and graduate programs. She is also a member of the permanent faculties of the Napa Valley Writers’Conference and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.