Justin Hocking (writer)

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 a Oregon Literary Fellowship in Fiction, three 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 forthcoming 2017 book about Johannes Gutenberg and the invention of the printing press. He is a 2016/2017 Visiting Faculty member in Creative Writing at Evergreen State College, and also teaches in the MFA Program in creative writing at Eastern Oregon University. He currently lives with his wife in Portland, Oregon. As an author, he has been collected by libraries.

Justin Hocking was born in Glenwood Springs, Colorado in 1973. At age 12, he moved with his family to San Diego. He attended college at the University of Colorado, and earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Colorado State University in 2002. During the mid 2000s he lived in New York City, where he compiled and edited a literary anthology entitled "Life and Limb" for Soft Skull Press. He also worked as an assistant editor at Citadel Underground. In 2006 he relocated to Portland, Oregon to assume the Executive Director position at the Independent Publishing Resource Center. He is a contributing editor for the literary magazine Big Big Wednesday, and his work has appeared in Orion, Tin House, The Rumpus, Poets & Writers magazine, the Oregonian, the Portland Monthly, The Normal School, and elsewhere.

• 2016/2017 Regional Arts and Culture Council Project Grant award
• The 2015 Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction (The Sarah Winnemuca Award)
• Finalist for the 2015 Pen Center USA Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction
• 2015 Oregon Literary Fellowship in Fiction
• 2015/16 Regional Arts and Culture Council Project Grant Award
• 2014 Humanitarian Award from The Willamette Writers association
• 2014/15 Regional Arts and Culture Council Project Grant award
• 2014 Rising Star award from Portland Monthly magazine
• 2013/14 Regional Arts and Culture Council Project Grant award
• 2010 Skidmore Prize (runner up)

Hocking is a member of a Portland-based writing group with Lidia Yuknavitch, Chuck Palahniuk, Chelsea Cain, Monica Drake, Suzy Vitello, Erin Leonard, and others.

Nonfiction Books

• "Reclamation: Essays". Wheelhouse Press. 2016
• "The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld: A Memoir". Graywolf Press. 2014
• "Beach 90th". Swift Season Press. 2009.

Fiction

• "Gallery". Swift Season Press. 2015.
• "Life and Limb." (Editor; Fiction/Nonfiction Anthology). Soft Skull Press. 2004

Anthologized Works

• "City of Weird: 30 Otherworldly Portland Tales". Forest Avenue Press. 2016.
• "Portland Noir"