Jen Parsons is a skier, hiker and occasional coach. She has been published in Modern Loss, the Telluride Daily Planet and Telluride Magazine. She has received grants from the Telluride Arts District and been a finalist twice in the Erma Bombeck Writers-In-Residence program; she is currently polishing a memoir she developed through the Writing by Writers two-year DRAFT program. Parsons received a Writing by Writers residency to work in a colony barn in Palmer, Alaska, and at the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods. She is also the first place Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards winner in nonfiction.