BIO:

KIMBERLY KING PARSONS is a National Book Award-nominee and the bestselling author of We Were the Universe, a debut novel ranked number two on Time Magazine’s Best Books of 2024 and a Dakota Johnson Book Club pick the New York Times calls “a profound, gutsy tale of grief’s dismantling power.” We Were the Universe won the Oregon Book Award and was a finalist for the LAMBDA Literary Award in Bisexual Fiction, the Texas Book Award, and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award. It was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and was named a best book of the year in Elle, Time, Oprah Daily, Nylon, Marie Claire, Marie Claire UK, and others. Parsons’s debut collection, Black Light, was a finalist for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, the Story Prize, and the Texas Institute of Letters First Fiction Award. A recipient of fellowships from Yaddo and Columbia University, Parsons won the 2020 National Magazine Award for “Foxes,” a story published in The Paris Review. Parsons lives with her partner and children in Portland and teaches fiction in the MFA Writing Program at Pacific University. She is the co-creator of The Fountain with writer Chelsea Bieker.

~100-WORD BIO:

KIMBERLY KING PARSONS is a National Book Award-nominee and the bestselling author of We Were the Universe, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, winner of the Oregon Book Award, a finalist for the LAMBDA Literary Award and the Texas Book Award, a Dakota Johnson Book Club pick ranked #2 on TIME Magazine's Best Books of 2024, and a best book of the year in Elle, Oprah Daily, Marie Claire, Marie Claire UK and others. Parsons’s debut collection, Black Light, was a finalist for the Edmund White Award, the Story Prize, and the Texas Institute of Letters Award. Parsons teaches at Pacific University and lives in Portland.

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Born in Lubbock, Texas, Parsons earned a BA in English and an MA in Literary Studies (emphasis on the works of William Faulkner) from the University of Texas at Dallas. She then moved to New York, where she earned an MFA in fiction from Columbia University and served as the editor-in-chief of Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art. Parsons’s book reviews and interviews have appeared in Bookforum, BOMB, Time Out New York, The Millions, and elsewhere. She has been awarded residencies from Yaddo, Hermitage Artist Retreat, Tasajillo Writers Residency, Dairy Hollow, Baltic Writing Residencies, San Ysidro Ranch, the Gullkistan Center for Creativity, the Lillian E. Smith Center, Hypatia-in-the-Woods, and PLAYA.

Parsons is the recipient of fellowships from Columbia University, Yaddo, Hermitage Artist Retreat, the Oregon Arts Commission, Regional Arts and Culture Council, and the Sustainable Arts Foundation. Parsons’s novel We Were the Universe was a finalist for the Pacific Northwest Booksellers award, and her collection Black Light was a finalist for the 2020 Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, the 2020 Texas Institute of Letters Best Work of First Fiction Award, and the 2020 Oregon Book Award. Parsons’s fiction has been published in The Paris Review, New York Tyrant, Black Warrior Review, No Tokens, Kenyon Review, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere.