Justin Reed is a writer and educator who was born and raised in Watertown, New York. He is an assistant professor at Utah Valley University and lives in Salt Lake City with his wife, Joan, who is an elementary school teacher, his daughter, Vera, and his son, Daniel. He is currently revising his first novel, The Hidden Heart.

Justin has lived across the U.S.—from New York State to Florida, Boston to the Midwest—as well as in England and Spain. He earned his BA from Cornell University, an MFA from Florida State University, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD from the University of Cincinnati.

His work has appeared in The Iowa Review, Epoch, Grist, Consequence, Post Road, Flash, and other journals. His fiction received a special mention in the 2019 Pushcart Prize and has won the Hatfield/Westheimer Short Story Prize. He is a recipient of a Literature Artist Fellowship grant through the Somerville Arts Council. His work has also been supported by the University of Cincinnati's Research Council and Taft Research Center, where he was a 2025–2026 Taft Dissertation Fellow. Justin has served as assistant fiction editor for Consequence Magazine and senior reader for Harvard Review.