[citation needed] Rock is a professor of creative writing at Reed College and lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and daughters.
Rock attended Deep Springs College and received a BA in English from Yale University in 1991.
In 2010, Rock's novel My Abandonment, based on a true story,[2] received an Alex Award by the American Library Association.
[3] It also won the Utah Book Award[4] and was made into Debra Granik's 2018 film Leave No Trace, starring Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie.
Rock was given a USC Scripter Award in 2010 for his role in the creation of the screenplay.