Justin Hocking (writer)

rdf:langString Justin Hocking (writer)

rdf:langString Justin Hocking (born August 2, 1973) is an American essayist and writer of memoir, literary nonfiction, and short stories. His memoir, The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld, won the 2015 Oregon Book Award in Creative Nonfiction (The Sarah Winnemuca Award) and was a finalist for the 2015 PEN Center USA Literary award for Creative Nonfiction. Oregon Book Award judge John D'Agata described The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld as a "quiet and brilliant achievement of both emotion and technique." Hocking has also been awarded an Oregon Literary Fellowship in Fiction, four project grant awards from Oregon's Regional Arts and Culture Council, and a 2014 "Rising Star" award from the Portland Monthly magazine. The former executive director of the Independent Publishing Resource Center, Hocking supervised and implemented literary outreach to schools, treatment centers, and correctional facilities. He also founded the Independent Publishing Resource Center's yearlong Certificate Program in Creative Writing and Publishing. Based on his community engagement, the Willamette Writers association awarded him their annual Humanitarian Award in 2014, and Willamette Week named him one of "Ten Writers Who Made Portland." Hocking is also the author of two artisanal letterpress chapbooks, Gallery and Reclamation: Essays, published respectively by Swift Season Press and Wheelhouse Press. He regularly contributes book reviews for The Portland Mercury, and has written numerous books for young readers, including a 2017 title about Johannes Gutenberg and the invention of the printing press. He was a 2016/2017 Visiting Faculty member in Creative Writing at Evergreen State College, and currently teaches creative nonfiction as a full-time faculty member in the MFA and BFA programs in creative writing at Portland State University, as an assistant professor in the Critical Studies MA program at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, and in the low residency MFA program at Eastern Oregon University. He lives with his wife in Portland, Oregon. As an author, he has been collected by libraries.