I'm Matthew Sidney Parsons, and I create...

Now, I create poetry, prose, and songs for audiences who want authentic cultural storytelling, and to see themselves reflected in art that honors both tradition and progress.
And I teach young writers how to do the same. 

My story begins in Kentucky, but took root in West Virginia.  My dad, a bluegrass musician and songwriter, filled my ears with songs. And my mom, a librarian and storyteller, filled my hands with books. 

Life on the farm taught me the rhythms of the land, the discipline of work, and the ways stories live in the soil. My late Poppy, Sid Moye, was instrumental in showing me what a life of story and labor could be.

As a teenager, largely thanks to him and my mother, I became active in mountaintop removal protests, standing against the destruction of our hills for coal. I lobbied in Washington and learned that art and activism are bound by the same thread: the need to protect what is most sacred. That conviction carried me to Berea College for a BA in Appalachian Studies, and later to Eastern Kentucky University's Bluegrass Writers Studio for my MFA in Creative Writing.

Through it all, I've been writing songs, playing with my family band, and publishing poems, stories, and essays. I've written the title track for a Grammy-nominated album (Bronwyn Keith-Hynes' "I Built a World"), served as musician-in-residence at Hindman Settlement School's Appalachian Writers Workshop, and been published by outlets like Rattle and Still: The Journal.