{{short description|American poet}} {{Infobox writer | name = Frances Frost | image = Frost frances burlington daily news feb 19 1930.jpg | alt = | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date|1905|8|3}} | birth_place = St. Albans, Vermont | death_date = {{death date and age|1959|2|11|1905|8|3}} | death_place = New York City, New York | nationality = American | education = Middlebury College, University of Vermont | alma_mater = | signature = Signature of Frances Frost.jpg | signature_alt = Frances Frost }}

'''Frances Mary Frost''' (August 3, 1905 – February 11, 1959) was an American poet, novelist, and children's writer. She was the mother of poet Paul Blackburn.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://womenshistory.vermont.gov/Portals/0/Documents/FrancesFrostII.pdf |title=Vermont Women's History - Vermont Historical Society |last=Nelson |first=Julie |website=womenshistory.vermont.gov |access-date=2016-04-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120222131613/http://womenshistory.vermont.gov/Portals/0/Documents/FrancesFrostII.pdf |archive-date=2012-02-22 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Career== John C. Farrar, then-editor of ''The Bookman'' and a fellow Vermont native, accepted Frost's poem "Memory" in 1927 while she was still a junior at Middlebury College; it was the first of her poems to see professional publication.<ref>{{cite news |title=A Literary Arrival |url=https://newspapers.com/image/661521338 |access-date=13 December 2025 |work=Burlington Daily News |date=15 February 1930}}</ref> Moving to Burlington, Vermont that same year, she worked as an editor for the Burlington Daily News, taught courses in poetry at the University of Vermont, and authored several collections of poetry—including ''Hemlock Wall'' (1929), for which she received the Yale Younger Poets Award.<ref>{{cite news |title=Frances Frost to Conduct Course in Poetry at University |url=https://newspapers.com/image/661526920 |access-date=13 December 2025 |work=Burlington Daily News |date=2 June 1930}}</ref>

From 1931 to 1937 Frost was a summer resident at MacDowell, where she worked on further poetry collections including ''These Acres'' (1932).<ref>{{cite news |title=Francis [sic] Frost Returns from Writers Colony |url=https://newspapers.com/image/657198502 |access-date=13 December 2025 |work=Burlington Daily News |date=19 September 1931}}</ref> During this period she served as the editor of the brief-lived ''American Poetry Journal'' (1933-1935).

Frost's poetry was widely-published<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Monroe |first1=Harriet |title=Review: Too Easy Paces |journal=Poetry |date=December 1932 |volume=41 |issue=3 |pages=163–164 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20578828 |access-date=13 December 2025}}</ref> in her lifetime, appearing in ''The New York Herald Tribune'', ''The Atlantic'', ''Virginia Quarterly'', ''The Saturday Evening Post'', ''Good Housekeeping'', ''Ladies' Home Journal'',<ref>{{cite news |title=Poet, Former NEWS Writer Cancer Victim in New York |url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/660075239/ |access-date=12 December 2025 |work=Vermont Sunday News |date=15 December 1959 |location=Saint Albans, VT}}</ref> ''The New Yorker'', ''Harper's'',<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.harpers.org/subjects/FrancesFrost |title=Frances Frost {{!}} Harper's Magazine |access-date=2016-04-09}}</ref> and ''Saturday Review'', among others.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tMkGAQAAIAAJ |title=Saturday review|date=1939-01-01|publisher=Saturday Review Associates|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dx0QAAAAIAAJ |title=Saturday Review|last1=Voto|first1=Bernard Augustine De|last2=LLC|first2=R. R. Bowker|date=1971-01-01|publisher=Saturday Review Associates|isbn=9780835203944|language=en}}</ref> She saw eleven poetry collections published (four intended for children), as well as five novels and numerous children's books.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://ead-pdfs.library.yale.edu/1523.pdf |title=Guide to the Frances Frost Papers|last1=Kukil|first1= Karen V. |date=1988-08-01|language=English |access-date=2025-12-12}}</ref>

==Personal life== Frost was born in St. Albans, Vermont. She attended Middlebury College from 1923 to 1926 and graduated from the University of Vermont in 1931, earning a Bachelor of Philosophy.<ref>{{cite news |title=FRANCES FROST, 53, A POET, NOVELIST; Author Who Also Wrote for Children Is Dead -- Had Won Shelley Award |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1959/02/13/archives/frances-frost-53-a-poet-novelist-author-who-also-wrote-for-children.html?searchResultPosition=67 |access-date=13 December 2025 |work=The New York Times |date=13 February 1959}}</ref> At Middlebury she joined Delta Delta Delta.

She married William Gordon Blackburn of St. Albans on April 4, 1926, later filing for divorce in 1931.<ref>{{cite news |title=Frances Frost, Poet, Files Divorce Suit |work=The Vermont Tribune |date=2 September 1931 |location=Ludlow, VT}}</ref> They had two children, Paul Blackburn (U.S. poet) and Sister Marguerite Blackburn. She married Samuel Gaillard Stoney of Charleston, South Carolina, another resident of MacDowell, on September 18, 1933, whom she would also later divorce.<ref>{{cite news |title=Frances Frost, Poetess, Bride of C.G. Storey |url=https://newspapers.com/image/534136879/ |access-date=13 December 2025 |work=Rutland Daily Herald |date=20 September 1933}}</ref> By 1939 she had moved to New York City.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Storrs Lee |editor1-first=William |title=Bread Loaf Anthology |date=1939 |publisher=Middlebury College Press |location=Middlebury, VT |page=169 |url=https://archive.org/details/breadloafantholo0000fros |access-date=6 February 2026}}</ref> In 1941 her son moved in with her and Noreen Carr Grace, her lover, in Greenwich Village after having lived primarily in the care of Frost's parents in St. Albans for several years.<ref>{{cite web |last1=West |first1=Robert M. |title=Blackburn, Paul |url=https://www.anb.org/display/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1601892 |website=American National Biography |publisher=Oxford University Press |access-date=13 December 2025}}</ref> After Frost's death to cancer in 1959, N. Carr Grace was the executrix of her estate<ref>{{cite web |title=Collection: Frances Frost Papers |url=http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/beinecke.frost |website=Archives at Yale |publisher=Yale University |access-date=13 December 2025}}</ref> with co-executor Paul Blackburn.<ref>{{cite web |title=Register of Paul Blackburn Papers - MSS 0004 |url=https://library.ucsd.edu/speccoll/findingaids/mss0004.html |website=UCSD Library |publisher=UCSD |access-date=13 December 2025}}</ref>

Her papers are held at University of California, San Diego,<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://oac4.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf496nb34h/ |title=Collection Title: Frost (Frances) Papers|website=oac4.cdlib.org |access-date=2025-12-12}}</ref> and Yale University.

==Awards== * 1929 Yale Younger Poets Award * 1933 O. Henry Award for "The Heart Being Perished" * 1933 Golden Rose Award * 1933/1934 Shelley Memorial Award

==Works== <!-- 2018-08-05, this list contains the books among her 20 "most widely held works" at WorldCat --> <!-- perhaps the sections should be re-labeled and ordered As editor; For children; Other fiction; Other poetry or For adults (with subsections) ; For children (with subsections) -->

===Poetry===

* ''Hemlock Wall'' (Yale University Press, 1929); Yale Series of Younger Poets reprint, 1971 * ''Blue Harvest'' (Houghton Mifflin, 1931) * ''These Acres'' (Houghton Mifflin, 1932) * ''Woman of this Earth'' (Houghton Mifflin, 1934) * ''Road to America'' (Farrar & Rinehart, 1937) * ''Mid-Century'' (New York: Creative Age Press, 1946), {{OCLC|2959913}} * ''Song For April'' (circa 1950) Found in an old scrapbook in 2020 * ''This Rowdy Heart'' (Golden Quill, 1954)

===Fiction===

* ''Innocent Summer'' (Farrar & Rinehart, 1936) * ''Yoke of Stars'' (Farrar & Rinehart, 1938) <ref>{{cite magazine |author=<!-- not stated --> |date=1 January 1938 |title= Yoke of Stars |url= https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/frances-frost-2/yoke-of-stars/ |magazine= Kirkus Reviews |location= New York City, New York, U.S. |publisher= Kirkus Media |access-date= 2 November 2025}}</ref> * ''Uncle Snowball'' (Farrar & Rinehart, 1939) * ''Kate Trimingham'' (Farrar & Rinehart, 1940) * ''Village of Glass'' (Farrar & Rinehart, 1942)

===Children's poetry===

* ''Pool in the Meadow: Poems for Young and Old '' (Houghton Mifflin, 1933) * ''Christmas in the Woods'', illustrated by Aldren A. Watson (Harper & Brothers, 1942) * ''Christmas is Shaped Like Stars'', illus. Garry MacKenzie (T. Y. Crowell, 1948) * ''The Little Whistler'', illus. Roger Duvoisin (Whittlesey, 1949) * ''The Little Naturalist'', illus. Kurt Werth (Whittlesey, 1959)

===Children's fiction=== * ''Then Came Timothy'', illus. Richard Bennett (Whittlesey, 1950) * ''The Cat that Went to College'', illus. Morgan Dennis (Whittlesey,1951) * ''Little Fox'', illus. Morgan Dennis (Whittlesey, 1952) * ''Amahl and the Night Visitors'', illus. Duvoisin (Whittlesey, 1952) — narrative adaptation of the 1951 Christmas opera by Gian Carlo Menotti * ''Rocket Away!'', illus. Paul Galdone (Whittlesey, 1953), foreword by Robert R. Coles, Chairman of the Hayden Planetarium<ref name=hayden/> * ''Star of Wonder'', illus. Galdone (Whittlesey, 1953), by Frost and Robert R. Coles<ref name=hayden/> * ''The Little Donkey'', illus. Oleg Zinger (Whittlesey, 1959) — translated from the work of Oleg Zinger and Ilse Windmuller

====The ''Windy Foot'' series==== * ''Windy Foot at the County Fair'', illus. Lee Townsend (McGraw-Hill, 1947) * ''Sleigh Bells for Windy Foot'', illus. Townsend (Whittlesey, 1948) * ''Maple Sugar for Windy Foot'', illus. Townsend (McGraw-Hill, 1950) * ''Fireworks for Windy Foot'', illus. Townsend (McGraw-Hill, 1956)

===As editor=== * ''American Poetry Journal'' (Leonard Twinem, 1933-1935)<ref>{{cite web |title=Catalog Record: American poetry journal. |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009367336 |website=hathitrust.org |publisher=HathiTrust |access-date=13 December 2025}}</ref> * ''Legends of the United Nations'' (Whittlesey, 1943)<ref>{{LCCN|43014971}} {{OCLC|1216299}}; {{LCCN|50000506}} {{OCLC|13169260}}.</ref>

==References== {{reflist |25em |refs=

<ref name=hayden> Two children visit the Planetarium. <br>&nbsp; Publisher advertisements of Spring and Fall 1953 books for children list these two books with one-sentence capsules: "David and Jean take the Planetarium's thrilling rocket trip to the moon." and "David and Jean travel back to the first Christmas to explore the mystery of the wonderful star." ''New York Herald Tribune'', May 17 pE29 and November 15 pF16, 1953. <br>&nbsp; See also Library of Congress and WorldCat records {{LCCN|53005187}} {{OCLC|1653271}}; {{LCCN|53009011}} {{OCLC|1418332}}. <!-- LC Subject Headings Magi; Astronomy in the Bible --></ref>

}}

==External links== *Frances Frost Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. * {{LCAuth|n88274118|Frances Frost|36|}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Frost, Frances}} Category:1905 births Category:1959 deaths Category:American children's writers Category:20th-century American novelists Category:20th-century American poets Category:Middlebury College alumni Category:University of Vermont alumni Category:Yale Younger Poets winners Category:People from Franklin County, Vermont Category:20th-century American women novelists Category:American women children's writers Category:20th-century American women poets