BIO:

National Book Award-nominee KIMBERLY KING PARSONS is 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 was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and was a best book of 2024 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. An Oregon Book Award-winner, 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 the writer Chelsea Bieker.

100-WORD BIO:

National Book Award-nominee KIMBERLY KING PARSONS is the bestselling author of We Were the Universe, a Dakota Johnson Book Club pick ranked #2 on TIME Magazine's Best Books of 2024. The New York Times praised the debut novel as "a profound, gutsy tale of grief's dismantling power" and it was a best book of 2024 in Elle, Oprah Daily, Marie Claire, Marie Claire UK and many others. Parsons’s debut collection, Black Light, was a finalist for the Edmund White Award for Fiction, the Story Prize, and the Texas Institute of Letters Fiction Award. An Oregon Book Award-winner, Parsons teaches fiction at Pacific University and lives in Portland with her family.

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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.