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Faculty and Staff

John Parras

Professor • Department of Language Literature Culture and Writing

John Parras received a B.A. in Creative Writing from Carnegie Mellon University and a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University. A National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow in Prose, John Parras is the author of Fire on Mount Maggiore (University of Tennessee Press, 2005), which won the Peter Taylor Prize for the novel. His creative work has appeared in Conjunctions, Salmagundi, Painted Bride Quarterly, Xconnect, Oasis and other literary journals, and his chapbook, Dangerous Limbs: Prose Poems and Flash Fictions (2013), is published by Kattywompus Press.

A Professor at William Paterson University, he chaired the Faculty Senate from 2011-2013. He currently directs the M.F.A. in Creative and Professional Writing program and the 5-Year B.A./M.F.A. program, coordinates the WP LLCW Department's Writing Workshops & Conferences Series, and serves as Editor of Map Literary: A Journal of Contemporary Writing and Art.

In 2016 he was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship for Fiction Writing from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and was a contributor to the NEA Grant "Conversations in the Visual Arts through Music and Literature" awarded to the WP University Galleries in 2022. Recently, he was awarded a grant from the Library of America to direct two public Latino Poetry events in 2024-2025.

To meet with Prof. Parras in his Virtual Office, go to https://wpunj.zoom.us/my/john.parras during his office hours or at a mutually agreed upon appointment time.

Professional Interests

Writing Program Administration; Digital Editing and Publishing; Grant Writing; Creative Writing Pedagogy

Other Interests

Digital Collage; Screenwriting

Degrees

PhD English & Comparative Literature, Columbia University New York, NY

BA Creative Writing / English, Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA

Specialization

Fiction and Creative Writing; 20th-Century & Contemporary Comparative Literature; Book and Magazine Publishing and Editing; Creativity & Innovation Studies

Representative Publications


"Song of Magsaysay" (short story); Conjunctions; 2014
https://conjunctions.com/articles/john-parras-c62/


Literary Theory in the Creative Writing Workshop; The Journal of Teaching Writing; 2005
https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/teachingwriting/article/view/1337/1286


Twitter Mind: On Jennifer Egan's 'Black Box'; Rain Taxi Review; 2012
https://www.raintaxi.com/twitter-mind/


"Ride" (flash fiction); CrossConnect: Writers of the Information Age; 1998
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/xconnect/v4/i2/g/parras.html


on V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River; The Literary Encyclopedia; 2003
https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7260

Representative Presentations


Reading of Creative Work
Literary Fellowship Showcase New Jersey State Council on the Arts
, 2017


Sponsored Research Panel: Fiction Reading & Discussion
Explorations Conference WPUNJ
, 2017


Flashback, Flash-Forward: Jumping through Time in Fiction
WP Spring Writer's Conference
, 2015


Experimental Fiction Today
Associated Writing Programs
, 2013

Awards and Honors

College of Humanities & Social Sciences Group Project Award for Map Literary
William Paterson University
01/01/2015

The Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel
Knoxville Writer's Guild
01/01/2004

Fellowships, Grants and Research

National Endowment for the Arts: Grants for Arts Projects
Grant

New Jersey State Council on the Arts: Prose Writing
Fellowship

New Jersey Council for the Humanities: Writer's Conference Support
Grant

National Endowment for the Arts: Fiction Writing
Fellowship

New Jersey State Counil on the Arts: Writer's Conference Support
Grant

Notable Courses Taught

Writing Sudden Fiction
Writing Experimental Fiction
The Prose Poem
Book & Magazine Editing & Publishing
Writing for the Magazine Market
MFA Thesis Project Seminar
Creative Writing Pedagogy

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