Joe Parsons grew up in a big family in Ohio, where books seemed to proliferate overnight, so it makes sense that after grad school, he would find his way to publishing—though not without a few detours along the way, including several years as a consultant and as a lecturer at Columbia College in Chicago. Most recently, he was a senior editor at the University of North Carolina Press.
Joe Parsons grew up in a big family in Ohio, where books seemed to proliferate overnight, so it makes sense that after grad school, he would find his way to publishing—though not without a few detours along the way, including several years as a consultant and as a lecturer at Columbia College in Chicago. Most recently, he was a senior editor at the University of North Carolina Press, where he acquired broadly in the humanities and social sciences, as well as creative nonfiction, documentary arts, current events, and history, and published the winner of the 2017 Bancroft Prize for history. Previously, he edited the acclaimed Sightline Series at the University of Iowa Press, where he also founded Muse Books: The Iowa Series in Writing and Creativity and the New American Canon: The Iowa Series in Contemporary Literature and Culture and acquired books for the Contemporary North American Poetry Series. Joe has also worked as a manuscript editor, journal editor for the National Humanities Center, and independent editor and writer, as well as a researcher and reporter.
