Michael Hemmingson (July 12, 1966 – January 9, 2014) was a novelist, short story writer, literary critic, cultural anthropologist, qualitative researcher, playwright, music critic and screenwriter. He died in Tijuana, Mexico on 9 January 2014. The reported cause was cardiac arrest.[1]
Publishing history
As an independent scholar, Hemmingson wrote the meditation, Gordon Lish and His Influence on Twentieth Century American Literature[2] a short TV studies monograph on Star Trek (Wayne State Univ. Press), and an ethnographic research project, Zona Norte (Cambridge Scholars).[3] At the time of his death he was working on a biography of Raymond Carver, set for publication in 2014 by McFarland & Company.
Hemmingson was a prolific writer, often publishing 2-3 books a year. According to one reviewer, "Hemmingson has written over fifty books, and his experience shows. Not only does he inform the stories in This Other Eden with tangible details of the publishing industry, but he also imbues his characters with personalities that are displayed through his skillful use of highly individualized dialogue for each person."[4]
He was a staff writer at the San Diego Reader from November 2004 through January 2014.[5][6][7] The last public article he wrote for the San Diego Reader was a critical music review of the rookie project, Million Dollar Mixtape[8] by San Diego recording artist The Toven released in 2012. The review was published by the San Diego reader on January 6, 2014 [8] just three days before his death on January 9, 2014. Many of the photos that accompany his articles there were taken by San Diego's iconic brand photographer, Chris Morrow.[9] In 2010 he joined the staff of Pacific San Diego Magazine.
Real Ideas Studio produced a short documentary, "Life in Zona Norte,"[14] that was screen at Cannes Film Festival's Short Film Corner[15] May, 2009.[16]
Awards and honors
Hemmingson won the San Diego Book Awards Association's first Novel-in-Progress grant for The Rose of Heaven and SDBAA's Best Published novel for Wild Turkey. His media study monograph, Star Trek: A Post-Structural Critique of the Original Series, was a 2010 finalist nominee for General Non-fiction Book.[17]
Recipient of two Everett Helm Research Fellowships at the Lily Library Indiana University for research on Gordon Lish, Raymond Carver, and William Vollmannn.
Hemmingson was called "Raymond Carver on acid" by literary guru Larry McCaffery and "a disciple of a quick and dirty literature" by the American Book Review.[23]
Theater
From 1995 to 2000, he was Literary Manager of The Fritz Theater in San Diego, where he directed, produced, and wrote many plays there, as well as for his own company, The Alien Stage Project,[24][25] that still produces theater in San Diego and Los Angeles. His full-length play, Driving Somewhere, won the 1997 Ventana New Play Award in San Francisco. It was first produced in 1995 by The Fritz Theater.
His one-act play, Iraq, was produced in the 2000 Samuel French, Inc. One-Act Play Festival in New York.
His one-act, Milk, has been widely produced and is published in the book, The Art of the One-Act.[26] It has been produced in Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, and San Diego.
His full-length play, Erotic Scenes in a Cheap Motel Room, has been produced by dozens of theaters and is available as a radio drama from Walcott & Sheridan Audio Library. Its debut was on March 11 at the Fritz Theatre.[27]
Fritz Theater original productions: Driving Somewhere, Iraq, Bosnia, Erotic Scenes in Cheap Motel Room.
Alien Stage Project original productions: Erotic Scenes in a Cheap Motel Room, Milk.
Actor's Alliance Play Festival original productions: Milk, NASDAQ, The Aliens, Happiness.
Compass Theater (San Diego) production of full-length, Stations in Summer 2009. Stations was directed by David Meredith and performed at the Resilience of the Spirit Festival.[28]
In 2009, at the National Communication Association convention in Chicago, Hemmingson was awarded, by the Carl Couch Center, the Norman K. Denzin Qualitative Research Award for his paper of auto/ethnography, "Fragments of my Grandmothers."[29][30]
Radio
From April 2012 until his death, Hemmingson hosted the show The Art of Dreaming on Revolution Radio at freedomslips.com.[31]
The Naughty Yard San Francisco: (Permeable Press, 1994) ISBN1-882633-02-4 reprinted in The Mammoth Book of International Erotica (Carroll & Graf, 1996) ISBN0-7867-0373-3
Fiction collections
Poison from a Dead Sun/The Chronotope (Wildside Press, 2012) (Novel + collected science fiction stories)
Nice Little Stories Jam-Packed with Depraved Sex & Violence Denver, CO: (CyberPsychos AOD, 1995) ISBN1-886988-00-5
Poetry collections
Ourselves or Nothing Rockville, MD: (The New Traveller's Companion/Olympia Press, 2010) ISBN1-59654-860-6
Rwanda (Yellow Bat Press, 2003)
Moving in on the Conservatives Detroit, MI: (Planet Detroit Press, 1995)
Reaching Into the Wet Darkness. Stow, Ohio: (Impetus Press, 1986)
Nowhere is Safe (Samizdat Press, 1985)
Plays
Milk Kalamazoo, MI: (New Issues in Poetry and Prose, 2007)
Driving Somewhere San Francisco: (Vantana Productions, 1997)
Literary criticism
Women in the Short Fiction of Raymond Carver Jefferson, NC: (McFarland & Company, 2014)
William T. Vollmann: An Annotated Bibliography Lanham, MD: (Scarecrow Press, 2012)
Gordon Lish and His Influence on Twentieth Century American Literature New York and London: (Routledge, 2013)
William T. Vollmann: A Critical Study and Seven Interviews. Jackson, NC: (McFarland & Company, 2009) ISBN0-7864-4025-2
The Dirty Realism Duo: Charles Bukowski and Raymond Carver on the Aesthetics of the Ugly. San Bernardino, CA: (The Borgo Press, 2008, The Milford Series: Popular Writers of Today No. 70) ISBN1-4344-0257-6
^Zona Norte : the post-structural body of erotic dancers and sex workers in Tijuana, San Diego and Los Angeles : an auto/ethnography of desire and addiction. Michael Hemmingson
^Stylized comedy is Honeymoon promise[dead link] by Michael Phillips (Apr 12, 1996) The San Diego Union - Tribune, Lifestyle section "While continuing their association with the Fritz producing director Karin Williams and literary manager Michael Hemmingson have formed Alien Stage Project"
