Chris Justice
Born and raised in New Jersey (Exit 9), I live, after an enchanting two-year detour in New Mexico, with my wife and two children in a farmhouse built in 1939 in Owings Mills, Maryland. During the day, I'm the Director of Expository Writing at the University of Baltimore; at night, on weekends, and during other flashes of inspiration (a.k.a. "spare time"), I'm a freelance writer.
Hoping to never fit in anywhere, when I'm not teaching, watching horror films, or writing, I can usually be found fishing, hiking, reading, studying something related to writing, plucking my bass, rooting for the 49ers or Devils, or chillin' with my wife and kids.
I also enjoy spreading government conspiracies and talking to myself in mall parking lots. A humanist and liberal arts nerd at heart, there is little I find boring. Not too many nights pass without at least one dream-episode involving some type of monster registering in my unconscious. Last night it was rabid chipmunks; the night before, the ghost of my Little League coach, who turned zombie, then became lunch for a giant squid.
I hold a master's degree in Modern Studies from Loyola College and a bachelor's in English from Rutgers University. While living in Albuquerque, I earned teacher certification in Secondary English Education at the University of New Mexico and recently completed a Certificate in Online Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I formerly served as an Assistant Professor of English and Mass Communication at The Community College of Baltimore County.
Once a staff writer for Greater Media Newspapers in New Jersey, my words have since appeared in The Baltimore Sun, Senses of Cinema, PopMatters, Bay Weekly, and Blue Ridge Country. My monthly column, The Tackle Box, is featured in PopMatters and focuses on how the sport of fishing is portrayed in popular culture. I also recently completed book chapters about Edgar G. Ulmer and Michael Haneke and am working on two others: one about the Back to the Future trilogy and its relationship to Ronald Reagan's political rhetoric, and another about Joseph H. Lewis' seminal lovers on the run film, Gun Crazy. I'm also working on a novel based on my youth growing up along Lawrence Brook in Milltown, New Jersey and am represented by Inkwell Management.
