Justin Hocking

Co-founder of the EOU Wilderness Writing track, Justin Hocking formerly worked as a backpacking guide in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado. Issues of place, ecology, and human connection to landscapes and seascapes are primary concerns in his creative work. He is the author of thirteen books, including Life and Limb (Soft Skull Press), Beach 90th (Swift Season Press), and, most recently, the memoir The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld (Graywolf Press), which chronicles his obsession with the ocean and the novel Moby-Dick. His writing has also appeared in The Rumpus, The Normal School, The Oregonian, Open City, Rattapallax, Travel Oregon, The Portland Review, and elsewhere. Before moving to Oregon in 2006, he worked as an editor at Citadel Underground press in New York City. He is currently the Executive Director of the Independent Publishing Resource Center (www.iprc.org), and a founder and lead instructor in the IPRC’s Certificate Program in Creative Writing. In 2013, the Willamette Week named him as one of the “Ten Writers Who Made Portland.”