Dr Jo Parsons
Lecturer in English and Creative Writing
Dr Jo Parsons specialises in popular literature and culture from the Victorian period to the present day. Originally a Victorian popular fiction specialist with interests in masculinity, the body, Wilkie Collins, and Victorian Sensation Fiction, Jo is now leading Falmouth’s move into the area of Erotica and Romantic Fictions and is currently writing a monograph on popular women’s writing from 1970–2000, with a particular focus on the Bonkbuster. She is currently on a part time secondment in the university's Centre for Blended Realities where she is undertaking a funded creative and critical project on sex, intimacy, pleasure, and haptic technologies.
She is editor of Doomed Romances: Strange Tales of Uncanny Love (British Library 2024). She is co-editor and has also had a creative piece published in 13 Cornish Ghost Stories (Mabecron, 2024), and co-editor of several collections including Ghosts and the Gothic (Manchester University Press, 2025); Women Writing Men:1689-1869 (Routledge, 2022); and The Victorian Male Body (Edinburgh University Press, 2019). She has also published several journal special issues, journal articles, and book chapters. She is the founder of the new International Women's Writing Association, as well as co-founder of the Scholarly Association of Menopausal Studies, and is on the editorial and advisory boards of the Dark Economies Scholarly Association and the Wilkie Collins Association). She was on the book prize committee for the British Association of Victorian Studies Rosemary Mitchell second monograph prize and is a current judge of the Contemporary Women's Writing Journal's essay prize. Jo is co-editor of three book series: Studies in Romance, Power, and Desire (University of Wales Press; and Gender and the Body in Literature and Culture and Nineteenth-Century and Neo-Victorian Cultures (Edinburgh University Press). Jo is also a creative writer, and her co-edited volume, 13 Cornish Ghost Stories, recently won the 2025 Holyer an Gof general fiction prize. She is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and has organised several popular international conferences, which will now include the forthcoming International Women's Writing conferences, which will take place online, in Falmouth, and in Pescara, Italy, across 2026. Her expertise has been recognised through her invitations to peer review from multiple journals and publishers, as well as invitations to give keynotes, including internationally, and contribute to publications.
Jo has also been featured in the media, most recently in an interview on BBC Radio 2 where she spoke about the Bonkbuster. She has appeared on Radio 4, Times Radio Drive, various local BBC radio stations, and Germany's Deutschlandfunk as well as various podcasts, including the Death Studies Podcast and Metro's Mentally Yours. She has been quoted in various popular publications including the New Zealand Listener, Metro, inews, and the Independent. She has published articles in the Independent and Times Higher Education.
Jo welcomes PhD applications in popular fiction, romance, erotica, sextech, crime fiction, gothic, gender studies, and popular culture.
External Links
Qualifications
Qualifications
| Year | Qualification | Awarding body |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | SEDA Accredited Doctoral Supervisor | University of the Arts |
| 2023 | Aurora: Women in Leadership in Academia Training | Advance HE |
| 2019 | PhD | Bath Spa University |
| 2017 | Postgraduate Certificate in Professional Learning in Higher Education | Bath Spa University |
| 2012 | Post Graduate Certificate of Education with Distinction in Life Long Learning and Skills | University of the West of England |
| 2009 | Masters in English | University of the West of England |
| 2008 | BA(Hons) English | University of the West of England |
Honors and awards
| Year | Description |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Winner. Gorsdh Kernow’s Holyer an Gof Prize for General Fiction: 13 Cornish Ghost Stories |
| 2025 | E3 Secondment. Project title: Intimate Technology and Blended Realities: How do teledildonics mediate, challenge, and reconfigure dominant cultural and ethical understandings of sex, consent and the body within intimate haptic spaces? |
Research Interests
Research interests and expertise
- Romance and erotica
- Sextech
- Pleasure and Intimacy
- Feminism
- 20th and 21st century commercial women’s fiction
- The Bonkbuster
- Genre fiction
- Gender Studies
- Body Studies
- Victorian literature, with particular reference to the novel
- Sensation fiction, in particular the work of Wilkie Collins
- Gothic, Crime, and Horror
I am also interested in supervising and examining PhDs in the above areas.
Areas of teaching
- 18th-21st Century Literature
- Gender Studies
- Crime Fiction
- Gothic
- Theory
Research Outputs
Publications and research outputs
Externally funded research grants information
| Collaborators | Currency | Funder | HESA Category | Project title | Value | Year ending | Year starting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | E3 Secondment | Intimate Technology and Blended Realities: How do teledildonics mediate, challenge, and reconfigure dominant cultural and ethical understandings of sex, consent and the body within intimate haptic spaces? | 23367.50 | 2025 | |||
| £ | British Association of Film and Television Studies | Small Grant to run a symposium on Bonkbusters. Principal Investigator | 300 | 2025 | 2025 | ||
|
Contemporary Women’s Writing Association & University of Wales Press | Contemporary Women’s Writing Association Annual International Conference | 2025 | 2025 | |||
|
Contemporary Women’s Writing Association & City University, Hong Kong | Sex, Scandal, and Sensation | Conference | 2024 | 2024 | |||
| Kirby, J. et al. Participant who is not named in the application but participated in the project. |
£ | AHRC Participation Grants | AHRC Participation Grants to fund a Menopause Exhibition at the Vagina Museum, London | 7415 | 2024 | 2024 | |
| Heholt, R, et al. Participant who is not named in the application but participated in the project. |
£ | AHRC Grant Being Human Festival | From Low Tech to High Tech: Cornish Personal Mythmaking | 500 | 2023 | 2023 | |
| Mulvey-Roberts, M. et al. Participant who is not named in the application but participated in the project. |
£ | AHRC Grant and IAA Grant | Scholarly Association of Menopausal Studies Website and Launch | 4988 | 2023 | 2023 | |
| Heholt, R. et al. Participant who is not named in the application but participated in the project. |
£ | Participatory Research Funding, Research England: Domestic Abuse and the Empowering Vengeance of Creative Writing | 4450 | 2022 | 2023 | ||
| £ | Bath Spa University | Two funded internships to work on the Wilkie Collins Journal. | 3000 | 2019 | 2018 | ||
|
The Wilkie Collins Society & Victorian Popular Fiction Association | The ‘Heart’ and ‘Science’ of Wilkie Collins and his Contemporaries’ | Principal Investigator and Principal Lead | 2016 | 2016 | |||
| Parsons, J et al. |
£ | British Society for Literature and Science | ‘Biomedical Science and the Maternal Body Symposium.’ | Co-Investigator and Co-Lead | 300 | 2015 | 2015 | |
| £ | Gladstone’s Library Scholarship. | 275 | 2013 | 2013 | |||
| £ | Higher Education Academy | Changing the Learning Landscape | Co-Investigator | 510 | 2013 | 2013 | ||
| Chaney, S, and J Parsons. |
£ | Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, Wellcome Library, British Society for Literature and Science, Institute of Psychiatry, University of the West of England’s Gender Studies Research Group. | Damaging the Body events, public engagement, symposiums, and workshops | Co-Investigator and Co-Lead | 8200 | 2013 | 2010 | |
| £ | Arts and Humanities Research Council | Funding for the Literature, Science and Medicine Doctoral Training Programme | 1000 | 2016 | 2010 | ||
| £ | the AHRC, HEA, and the National Association of Victorian Studies | Various conference and travel grants | 1700 | 2012 |
Research Students
Current research students
- Freya Campbell ‘HAPIHelper: Malfunction and Autonomy in Domestic-Use AI in Fiction’ Director of Studies
- Niall Chapman ‘Yes, Nos, and Mario Bros – A Heuristic Interrogation of Consent in Erotic Video Games’
- Martyn Clayton ‘Little Grey Cells: Narratives of autistic presence in the work of Agatha Christie – A creative and critical study’
- Vik Gill ‘The Ghost of Vicarage Row: Crossing the Threshold of Cornish Gothic, Crime, and Feminist Noir’
- Lydia Hounat ‘Intergenerational Trauma in Kabyle Women’s Isefra’
- George Jack ‘Heirlooms of the Macabre: The Appearance and Use of Gothic and Folk Horror Elements in the Works of Paul Green and Other Writers from the American Folk Drama Tradition at The Carolina Playmakers’
- Rose Johnson ‘’Tis the Night of the Witch: Supporting Difference within Dark Fan Communities’
- Halle Merrick ‘Sapphic Witchery in Contemporary Queer YA’
- Pete Jordi Wood ‘Motifs & The Marginalised: Reclaiming LGBTQI+ Magical Folklore and Folk Magic with Queer Neo-Folkloristics’
Previous student supervision
2023. Duncan Yeates ‘John Harris: Cornish Poet’, Falmouth University
Number of research students supervised to completion
1Professional Engagement
Independent professional practice
BOOKS AND MONOGRAPHS
Book Series
- Parsons, J. and M. Miller. Studies in Romance, Power, and Desire. Cardiff: University of Wales Press
- Heholt, R. and J. Parsons. Series Editors. Nineteenth Century and Neo-Victorian Cultures. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
- Heholt, R. and J. Parsons. Series Editors. Gender and the Body in Literature and Culture Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
Books
- Heholt, R. and J Parsons (eds.) Ghosts and the Gothic. Manchester. Manchester University Press. 2025. 9781526181916.
- Macneill, M and J Parsons (eds). 13 Cornish Ghost Stories. 200 pages. Falmouth. Mabecron Books Publishing. June 2024. 978-1739861339. (Creative Writing anthology)
- Parsons, J. (ed). Doomed Romances: Strange Tales of Uncanny Love. 304 pages. London. British Library. 2024. 978-0712355551
- Parsons, J. and R. Heholt (eds.) Women Writing Men: 1689–1869. 164 pages. London. Historical Women’s Writing, Routledge. Hardback June 2022; paperback January 2024. 978-1032227566
- Parsons, J. and R. Heholt (eds.) The Victorian Male Body. 272 pages, Edinburgh. Edinburgh University Press. Hardback April 2018; paperback August 2019. 978-1474428613
ARTICLES, PARTS OR CHAPTERS OF BOOKS.
- Heholt, R. and J Parsons ‘Introduction’ in Ghosts and the Gothic. Manchester. Manchester University Press. 2025. 9781526181916.
- Parsons, J. ‘The Blow In’ in 13 Cornish Ghost Stories. Falmouth. Mabecron Books Publishing. June 2024. 978-1739861339. (Fiction)
- Parsons, J. ‘Introduction’ and ‘Headnotes’. Doomed Romances: Strange Tales of Uncanny Love British Library. London. British Library. 2024. 978-0712355551
- Parsons, J. and R. Heholt ‘Introduction’ in Women Writing Men: 1689–1869. London. Historical Women’s Writing, Routledge. 2022/2024. 978-1032227566
- Parsons, J. and R Heholt ‘Introduction’. Women’s Writing, Special Issue: 19th Century Women Writing Men 28.2. Taylor and Francis. 2021 https://doi.org/10.1080/09699082.2021.1880354
- Parsons, J. ‘Fosco’s Fat: Transgressive Consumption and Bodily Control in Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White’ in The Victorian Male Body. Edinburgh. Edinburgh University Press, 2018/2019. 978-1474428613
- Parsons, J. ‘Food’ in Companion to Victorian Popular Fiction K. Morrison (ed.) Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. 2018. 978-1476669038
- Parsons, J. ‘The Occult’ in Companion to Victorian Popular Fiction K. Morrison (ed.). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. 2018. 978-1476669038
- Parsons, J. ‘Valeria Brinton/Woodville/Macallan’ in 100 Greatest Literary Detectives E. Sandberg (ed.) Lanham MA: Rowman & Littleford Publishers. 2018 978-1442278226
- Parsons, J. ‘Mrs Gladdon’ in 100 Greatest Literary Detectives E. Sandberg (ed.) Lanham MA: Rowman & Littleford Publishers. 2018 978-1442278226
- Parsons, Joanne Ella. ‘Surtees’ ‘Eating Englishness and Causing Chaos: Food and the Body of the Fat Man in R. S. Surtees’ Jorrocks’ Jaunts and Jollities, Handley Cross and Hillingdon Hall’ Nineteenth-Century Contexts 36.4 (September 2014)
Journals: Editorial
- 2025–. Contemporary Women’s Writing Journal. Oxford University Press. Associate Editor
- 2017–. Revenant. Assistant Editor
- 2016–2023. The Wilkie Collins Journal. Editor
Journals: Special Issues
- Miller, M, and J Parsons (eds.) Women’s Writing, Special Issue: Popular Women’s Writing 1900–1920. 31.2 Taylor and Francis. 23.04.2024. https://doi.org/10.1080/09699082.2024.2325811.
- Parsons, J. and R Heholt. (eds.) Women’s Writing, Special Issue: 19th Century Women Writing Men 28.2.2021 Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.1080/09699082.2021.1880354
- Muller, N and J Ella Parsons (eds.) Nineteenth-Century Contexts, Special Issue: The Male Body in Victorian Literature and Culture 36.4 (September 2014)
Social, community and cultural engagement
- 2026. Title TBC. Women’s Institute, Wells. Lecture
- 2025–26. Parsons, J. Bonkbusters! Online public seminar series Last Tuesday Society. Convenor.
- 2025. ‘Bonktastic Bonkbusters!: Sexing Up Late Twentieth-Century Women’s Writing’. The Last Tuesday Society. Online talk.
- 2025. ‘Bonkbusting The Stud!’ Poly, Falmouth. Lecture and screening.
- 2025. 13 Cornish Ghost Stories. Penzance Literary Festival. Talk.
- 2025. ‘Between the Script Sheets’ with Marie Macneil and John Macneil. The Poly, Falmouth. Workshop
- 2025. Make your own Burlesque Pasties workshop. Poly, Falmouth. Workshop.
- 2024. 13 Cornish Ghost Stories book events. Clemo Books, Newquay; Waterstones, Truro; Morab Library, Penzance; The Bookshop, Helston. Talks
- 2024. ‘The Pleasure Principle’ workshop. Falmouth Book Festival. Workshop
- 2024. ‘How to Write a Romance’ workshop. Portishead Romance Festival. Workshop.
- 2023. ‘The Love Formula’ workshop. Falmouth Book Festival. Workshop.
- 2018. ‘“She had ideas of her own”: Wilkie Collins, Women, and the Law’ Wye Arts Association. Lecture
- 2010¬–2013. Damaging the Body events, public engagement, symposiums, and workshops.
Selected Media
- 2025. Metro. Interview. ‘Bonkbuster Queen Jilly was my Saucy Heroine’. Print
- 2025. BBC Radio 2. ‘Stolen Phones and Jilly Cooper’. Interviewed by Jeremy Vine, Lunchtime Show
- 2025. BBC Cornwall..‘In Memory of Jilly Cooper’ Breakfast Show
- 2025. BBC Hereford and Worcester. ‘In Memory of Jilly Cooper’ Breakfast Show
- 2025. Fal Life. Interview. ‘Falmouth University hosts Contemporary Women’s Writing conference’ https://www.life-media.co.uk/news/womens-writing and print
- 2024. New Zealand Listener. Interview. ‘Success of TV’s Rivals brings fresh attention to bawdy, bouncing, bed-breaking books’. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-listener/books/success-of-tvs-rivals-brings-fresh-attention-to-bawdy-bouncing-bed-breaking-books/HCMOVSKVIRDYLMN3KMY3XDGFTE/
- 2024. BBC Cornwall. Interview ‘Christmas Romances’
- 2024. Deutschlandfunk (Germany). Interview. Cornwall – Anything but Rosamunde Pilcher (3) https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/cornwall-alles-andere-als-rosamunde-pilcher-3-dlf-3a51a4a4-100.html
- 2024. Deutschlandfunk (Germany). Sex, Scandal, Sensation Conference. Cornwall – Anything but Rosamunde Pilcher (1) https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/cornwall-alles-andere-als-rosamunde-pilcher-1-dlf-d9a236a6-100.html
- 2024. BBC Radio 4 Extra. The Third Degree. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0021q5d
- 2024. The Independent ‘Will the End of the Conservatives Kill off the Bonkbuster?’ https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bonkbuster-tories-jilly-cooper-riders-cleo-b2570519.html
- 2024. inews. Interview. ‘Can I overcome my snobbery about Romance novels?’ https://inews.co.uk/culture/books/overcome-snobbery-romance-novels-3071084
- 2023. Times Radio. Interview. Jilly Cooper’s latest novel and sex in Romantic Fiction.
- 2023. Times Higher Education. Parsons, Joanne Ella and Ruth Heholt. ‘The humanities can lead the belated discussion of the menopause’ https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/humanities-can-lead-belated-discussion-menopause
- 2023. The Death Studies Podcast. Interview: ‘Angeline Morrison and the Haunted Landscapes 2023 Conference’ https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/angeline-morrison/ DOI:10.6084/m9.figshare.24226096
- 2023. Independent. Interview: ‘From Pointless to the bestseller list: How Richard Osman became the biggest author in Britain’ https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/richard-osman-books-thursday-murder-club-cosy-crime-b2406546.html#comments-area
- 2023. Metro. Mentally Yours Podcast Interview: ‘Mental Illness in Literature. https://spotify.link/xK8Ggtt6fzb
- 2023. Lex Academic ‘Romance your Research’ https://www.lexacademic.com/blog/romance-your-research-lex-academic-blog/
- 2012. Wellcome Trust Public Engagement Short Documentary. Writer and Presenter: ‘Therapeutic Fasting: Dr. Henry S. Tanner (1831–1919)’ https://wellcomecollection.org/works/fcvmf35q
Engagement with professional associations and societies
- 2025–. International Women's Writing Association. Founder.
- 2023–. Contemporary Women’s Writing Association. Executive Committee.
- 2023¬–. Dark Economies Scholarly Association. Executive Board.
- 2023–. Wilkie Collins Journal. Board.
- 2022–. Scholarly Association of Menopausal Studies. Co-Founder.
- 2017–. Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
- 2016–. Wilkie Collins Society. Advisory Board.
Former Service
British Association of Victorian Studies. Executive Committee and Book Prize Judge
Feminist and Women’s Studies Association Executive Committee
International Crime Fiction Association Executive Committee
Victorian Popular Fiction Association Executive Committee
Postgraduate Contemporary Women’s Writing Network Steering Group
Member
British Association of Film and Television Studies; Love Research Network; Screening Sex Network; National Association of Writers in Education; UKCGE Research Supervisors Network; Culture and the Reproductive Body Network; R. S. Surtees Society (Honorary).
Professional Esteem Indicators
Selected Invited Keynotes and Lectures
- 2026. Keynote: Title TBC. International Women’s Writing Conference 2026. Pescara University, Italy.
- 2025. ‘The Angel in the House and the Bitch in the Boardroom: Sex, Power, and Desire in Jilly Cooper’s Rivals’ Narrative, Culture, and Community Research Centre, Bournemouth University.
- 2024. ‘Sex, Scandal, and Sensation in Wilkie Collins Fiction’. Dickens and Collins Conference. University of Buckingham.
- 2024. ‘Bonkbusters and Bestsellers: Women’s Writing in the Late Twentieth Century’ Pescara University, Italy.
- 2017. ‘“Great Guzzling” Gourmands: Food, Gender and (Un)Civilised Behaviour in R. S. Surtees’s Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour, Young Tom Hall, and Hillingdon Hall’ Deviant Food Practices in Victorian Literature and Culture Conference, Pescara University, Italy.
Selected Invited Speaker/Lecturer
- 2026. Invited Speaker Title TBC. Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies.
- 2025. Invited Speaker, ‘Death and the Spirit of the Macabre’ School of Liberal Studies and Media, UPES, Dehradun, India
- 2024. Invited Speaker, MA unit ‘Writing About Relationships’, Manchester Metropolitan University
- 2023–. Guest Lecturer, BA English Literature and Community Engagement Crime Fiction courses, Bristol University
- 2022. Invited Speaker. MA Dickens Studies, University of Buckingham
- 2025–. Contemporary Women’s Writing Journal. Essay Prize Co-Ordinator and Judge.
- 2020–2023. British Association of Victorian Studies: Rosemary Mitchell Book Prize Judge
