Allison Parrish

Allison Parrish, born in Bountiful, Utah, is an American computer programmer, poet, game designer, and artist. She earned a BA in Linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master of Professional Studies from New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. Parrish has served as Writer-in-Residence in the English Department at Fordham University and is an Associate Arts Professor at NYU, where she teaches courses on programming, computational creativity, language, and electronic literature.

Language is the central material of Parrish’s artistic practice. Through poetry, software, bots, games, and generative texts, she uses computational systems to explore how words relate to one another and how computers can generate new forms of expression from language. Her works reorganize language through algorithms, revealing unexpected connections between words, sounds, and ideas. In doing so, Parrish invites audiences to reconsider how language functions and to see words themselves as a material that can be explored, manipulated, and reimagined.

Parrish was named “Best Maker of Poetry Bots” by the Village Voice in 2016, and her chapbook Compasses received an Honorary Mention at the 2021 Prix Ars Electronica. In 2024, she received the Electronic Literature Organization’s Maverick Award. Her work has been featured in exhibitions including The Art of Bots at Somerset House in London and Texts and Soundings: The Image Talks Back at NARS Foundation in Brooklyn. Her poetry has appeared in publications including BOMB Magazine, Strange Horizons, Taper, and Ninth Letter, and she is the author of several books, including @everyword: The Book and Articulations.