Update 11/7: We are sorry to share that Justin Hocking is unable to appear at this year’s Portland Book Festival due to travel difficulties, and this event is canceled.

Justin Hocking pops-up at The Portland Art Museum galleries with a reading from his latest book, A Field Guide to the Subterranean: Reclaiming the Deep Earth and our Deepest Selves. 

Hocking will be paired up with artwork: Factories at Night.

About A Field Guide to the Subterranean: 

Justin Hocking grew up in a part of Colorado where so many things happened beneath the surface—mining exploits, underground nuclear testing just thirty miles from his family’s home, and geothermal activity that heats one of the world’s largest hot spring pools. His homelife, too, was plagued by hidden patterns of abuse and virulent masculinity. A Field Guide to the Subterranean charts the author’s lifelong process of unearthing the past and reclaiming his own identity and connection to the natural world.

How might we transform our traumas into deeper care for one another and the landscapes that sustain us? How do we transcend the mythos of the rugged American male so rooted in extraction and exploitation? And how far can we move beyond the self in a memoir? Hocking explores these and other vital questions by combining personal introspection with expansive narratives that examine geology, ecology, gender theory, mining history, labor rights, and even skateboarding.