JACK HICKS (1942-2024) taught in the English Department at UC, Davis from 1971 until his retirement in 2016. He co-founded and served as Director of the Graduate Creative Writing Program (1992–2001). His research interests included literature of California and the American West, literary and visual texts of place, the literature of wilderness, the contemporary detective novel, and recent American fiction and creative nonfiction.
Professor Hicks was Founding Director of "The Art of the Wild," a summer program on writing with nature, wilderness and the environment. The program attracted both national and international participants from 1992 to 2001 and was featured on BBC-Worldwide Radio and TV and PBS. Hicks served as the Director of the Pacific Regional Humanities Center (PRHC) at UC Davis for 2002-2003. He also directed the Nature & Culture Program at UC Davis and remained active on the advisory committee throughout the life of the program.
Hicks was co-editor of The Literature of California (University of California Press, 2000). This comprehensive anthology of California literature from Native American origins to the present was published to national acclaim, featuring on National Public Radio and winning the 2001 Commonwealth Club medal for the best book on California. He also co-edited California Poetry (Heyday Books, 2003) with Dana Gioia and Chryss Yost.