John Messick is a writer, teacher, and father who has also worked building hiking trails, fighting wildland fire, and shoveling snow in Antarctica. Since moving to Alaska in 2010, he has lived in Fairbanks, Homer, Ketchikan, and Soldotna, where he still lives with his spouse, Mollie, their two children, and a pair of aging sled dogs.
He currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Writing at Alaska Pacific University, where he teaches composition and creative writing.
John earned his MFA at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2013. He has written for numerous news outlets and literary journals, including Rock & Sling, Tampa Review, Nowhere magazine, The Miami Herald, Anchorage Daily News, and more. He was awarded the 2013 AWP Intro Journals Prize in nonfiction and a 2022 Rasmuson Foundation Individual Artist Award. Compass Lines, his first book, was published by Porphyry Press in 2023.
