Jon Parrish Peede

Biography

Jon Peede is the publisher of VQR. From 2007 to 2011, he was Director of Literature Grants for the National Endowment for the Arts, where he directed funding to writers, translators, publications, and literary organizations. In addition to directing the Big Read program for two years, Peede served as Counselor to NEA Chairman Dana Gioia from 2003 to 2007. He was the founding director of the NEA’s Operation Homecoming program, which resulted in the largest literary archive of US troop writing from Iraq and Afghanistan. He co-edited Inside the Church of Flannery O’Connor (2008).

See Work

ARTICLES

A Note to Our Readers and Contributors

By Jon Parrish Peede

For personal reasons, W. Ralph Eubanks has decided to leave the team of the Virginia Quarterly Review. Ralph brought his unique talents, commitment, and dedication to the magazine, and has made substantial contributions as Editor of VQR...

ESSAYS

Claudia Emerson and the Natural World

By Jon Parrish Peede

Though she received the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for a collection of deeply personal poems, one of Claudia Emerson’s finest gifts was for inhabiting the voices of others, creating essentially a Spoon River Anthology for rural Virginia.

EDITOR'S DESK / Summer 2013

People & Place

By Jon Parrish Peede

love the summer issues of commercial magazines with their exotic vacation escapes. Notwithstanding the crass product placement of beachwear, they are welcoming at a time of the year when we need to recharge. Certainly, the VQR staff wants...

EDITOR'S DESK / Spring 2013

The Past Is Not Even Past

By Jon Parrish Peede

In this issue, we have called upon innovative thinkers to write about where literature is headed as a field and business. We wanted essays that were well reasoned, however speculative in nature. We wanted them to be aggressive, even edgy...

EDITOR'S DESK

Ralph Eubanks Selected as VQR Editor

By Jon Parrish Peede

We are proud to announce that W. Ralph Eubanks has been selected as editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review. Ralph will shape the content for the print and digital magazine, website, and future e-books and will provide creative direction to...

EDITOR'S DESK / Winter 2013

Notes From the Dream Factory

By Jon Parrish Peede

From the eclipsed icons of silent film to the stars of Bollywood, from the set of a breakout, made-for-tv movie to how the publicity game is played, from Walt Disney’s Snow White to Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, we have tried to provide an...
EDITOR'S DESK

Counting Women

By Jon Parrish Peede

In recent years, the organization VIDA—Women in the Literary Arts has tallied the number of female and male contributors to leading cultural magazines. It’s called The Count. The findings are shocking: 20-30 percent of contributors to...

EDITOR'S DESK

Congratulations to Natasha Trethewey for Her Appointment as U.S. Poet Laureate

By Jon Parrish Peede

We are proud to announce that VQR contributing editor Natasha Trethewey has been named the Poet Laureate of the United States. “Natasha Trethewey is an outstanding poet/historian in the mold of Robert Penn Warren, our first Poet Laureate...

EDITOR'S DESK

Ted Genoways Steps Down to Focus on His Writing Career

By Jon Parrish Peede

As our readers realize, we underwent a staff transition at VQR over the past two years and at times had only one employee, Ted Genoways, selecting and editing the magazine’s content. Thus, it is remarkable that VQR received three National...

EDITOR'S DESK

VQR Nominated for Three National Magazine Awards

By Jon Parrish Peede

The American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) today honored the Virginia Quarterly Review with three nominations for its prestigious National Magazine Awards—the magazine world’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prizes. VQR, edited by Ted...