James Parker is a staff writer at
The Atlantic.
Turned On, his 1998 biography of the punk-rock performer Henry Rollins, has been described as “breathlessly brilliant” (
New Musical Express) and “a modern-day
Pilgrim’s Progress” (
Feed.com). He was previously a staff writer for the
Boston Phoenix, where he won New England Newspapers and Press Association awards for his reporting on history and religious issues, and an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for music criticism. In 2012, he was nominated for a National Magazine Award for his columns at
The Atlantic. In 2017–18 he was the Institute of Liberal Arts journalism fellow at Boston College. Since 2011, Parker has been running the Black Seed Writers Group—a weekly writing workshop for homeless, transitional, and recently housed writers–and editing
The Pilgrim, a literary magazine from the homeless community of downtown Boston.
