Michael Hemmingson

Michael Hemmingson has covered local homicides, bands, art, culture, and social issues for the Reader. He also publishes novels, short story collections, literary criticism, and edited anthologies, such as Expelled from Eden: A William T. Vollmann Reader, and The Mammoth Book of Legal Thrillers. His novel, The Rose of Heaven, set in Temecula, c. 1911, won the first San Diego Book Awards Association’s Novel-in-Progress Grant in 2000. The SDBAA also awarded him Best Published Novel of 2002 for Wild Turkey, a noir thriller that takes place in North Park and Las Vegas. His latest book is set for release in summer 2008: In the Background Is a Walled City, set in San Diego and Santa’s Castle in the North Pole.

Hemmingson is also an ethnographer, publishing both empirical and theoretical work in qualitative inquiry under the aegis of sociology, communications, and anthropology, with forthcoming books iBLOGGER: Symbolic Interaction, Digital Ethnography, and the Electronic Double in the Blogosphere and Auto/Ethnographies: Sex, Death and Independent Filmmaking in the Eighth Moment of Qualitative Inquiry. He is currently finishing two ethnographic studies of Tijuana, Zona Norte and Shadow Lives, and a social issues study of homelessness, Now I Know What Happened to Me.

His first feature film, The Watermelon, was released in fall 2008.

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Recent Articles

Catch Me if You Can -- Smash and Flee in Midday El Cajon

On 9/18/11 at about 11:38 pm, the driver of a Nissan Maxima going east bound on East Main Street in ...

Man Divorces Wife by Gunshot

2:10 PM in the Gaslamp Quarter -- 83-year-old Joseph Gotell.allegedly shot and killed his 57-year-old wife, Deborah Gottel. Witnesses report ...

What David Antin Talks About at D.G. Wills Bookstore When He Talks About Andy Warhol

Last Friday evening (7:00 PM, May 13, 2011) I went to La Jolla to hear former UCSD-prof David Antin read ...

Abandoned by Families: Tijuana Strays Search and Beg for Food

Since last March, the number of stray dogs and cats have increased quite a bit on the streets of Tijuana, ...

My Three Lives

I am living three separate lives in three different cities. No one can understand this but I, and I am ...

Young Mass Gets Reduced

Word is that San Diego-based rapper Young Mass' Las Vegas kidnapping charge has been reduced to a domestic violence beef. ...

Bullets in the Gaslamp

Been a while since there's been a shooting in downtown and the Gaslamp, sort of a nod toward the old ...

Friend of Shamu

When Chris Cantore signed off from his shift at 91X on December 14, 2007, he told listeners that he was unsure if he would be returning to the job after a two-week vacation. Cantore’s on-air ...

The Gothic M.O.

Call Me Alice is in the final stages of completing their new CD How Motivation Killed the Man, scheduled for release this fall. At least, that seems to be the plan. The San Diego techno-goth ...

Wages of Art

Zack Wentz, primarily a drummer and vocalist, is somewhat of a minimalist with regard to band lineups — Kill Me Tomorrow is a three-man act, and the offshoot, Tender Buttons, was one person on keyboards ...

Bert's Fan

If given a chance for an alternate profession, Brenda Xu would work for Sesame Street, “writing skits for Bert and Ernie. Bert’s such a great ‘square’ character. I love his mundane sensibilities.” The San Diego ...