Waterbury native, Steven Parlato, a novelist and poet, is also Professor of English at Naugatuck Valley Community College, where he serves as faculty advisor to award-winning student newspaper, The Tamarack; he is also moderator for the College’s literary event, Confluencia. Parlato has played roles ranging from the Scarecrow to Macbeth, and his poetry appears in journals including Freshwater, MARGIE, Borderlands, CT River Review, Pirene’s Fountain, and Peregrine.

Steven’s first fiction manuscript won the 2011 CT Shoreline Arts Alliance Tassy Walden Award for Young Adult Fiction( in May 2018, Parlato returned as Tassy keynote speaker). Upon The Namesake’s publication (Merit Press, 2013), Publishers Weekly called Parlato “a name to watch.” Steven has led writing workshops for teens and adults at several CT libraries and bookstores and has presented at literary events in Pennsylvania and Texas.

His second novel, The Precious Dreadful, was released by Simon Pulse, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, in February 2018. Also an illustrator, Parlato is husband to Janet and proud father of two amazing young people. Follow Steven online at www.stevenparlato.com and on Twitter @parlatowrites.