Hub City Press to publish Joe Bond's debut novel HOPE HOUSE

Hub City Press is proud to announce it will publish Joe Bond's debut novel HOPE HOUSE in spring 2026. 

They came from all over—the city, the sticks, every place in between. They’d dealt dope, stole cars, hurt people. They’d been hurt themselves. They all had different stories, different reasons why they landed in trouble, but for a while they had one thing in common: Hope House, a residential treatment program for boys.

Deeply honest, soulful, and searing with the anger, longing, and fierce spirit of these boys, HOPE HOUSE is a coming-of-age story in chorus, told through the intersecting lives of these kids moving through the program and stumbling into something of a family. These are boys we root for, rage for, and hearts break for as they grapple with their pasts and dare to imagine different futures. It is a novel about belonging, care, and finding your place in a rough world, from a striking new voice.

Joe says, "So many of the boys in my novel are searching for a home, and I can’t think of a better one for them than Hub City Press. This is a team that champions the unsung by publishing great literature. I’m humbled to work with them.”

Joe Bond grew up around group homes and residential treatment programs in eastern Kentucky. He’s been a child-care worker, a copy editor, a security guard at a psychiatric hospital and a research librarian at a law firm in Times Square. For several years he covered mixed martial arts fighting for ESPN and various magazines and newspapers throughout the U.S., Brazil and Japan. He began working on Hope House after his story “Damico” won the Masters Review Short Story Award. He lives in New Orleans.