KIMBERLY KING PARSONS is the author of the debut novel We Were the Universe. She won the 2020 National Magazine Award for Fiction, and her short story collection, Black Light, was longlisted for the National Book Award and the Story Prize. Her fiction has been published in The Paris Review. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her partner and children.
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; her fiction has been published in New York Tyrant, Black Warrior Review, No Tokens, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. Parsons’ 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.
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 later 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. She received the Indiana Review Fiction Prize, placed second in the Joyland Open Border Fiction Prize, and was runner-up in both the Black Warrior Review Fiction Contest and the Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest.
