Paul Hemphill

Dates

February 18, 1936 - July 11, 2009

Other Names Used

• Paul James Hemphill, Jr.: full name

Alabama Connection

Selected Works

• Hemphill, Paul. The Nashville Sound: Bright Lights and Country Music.New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970.
• Hemphill, Paul. The Good Old Boys.New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974.
• Hemphill, Paul. Long Gone: A Novel.New York: Viking Press, 1979. Rpt. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002.
• Hemphill, Paul. The Sixkiller Chronicles.New York: Macmillan, 1985.
• Hemphill, Paul. Leaving Birmingham: Notes of a Native Son.New York: Viking, 1993.
• Hemphill, Paul. Wheels: A Season on NASCAR's Winston Cup Circuit.New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
• Hemphill, Paul. The Ballad of Little River: A Tale of Race and Restless Youth in the Rural South.New York: Free Press, 2000.
• Hemphill, Paul. Lovesick Blues: The Life of Hank Williams.New York: Viking, 2005.
• Hemphill, Paul. A Tiger Walk through History: The Complete Story of Auburn Football from 1892 to the Tuberville Era.Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2008.

Literary Awards

Biographical Information

Paul Hemphill was born and grew up in Birmingham, Ala. He wanted to become a professional baseball player after high school but wasn't signed by the team for which he tried out. He enrolled at Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University) and soon discovered that he had a talent for writing, becoming the sports editor of the school newspaper. In 1958, Hemphill had a summer internship in the sports department of The Atlanta Constitution and was hired as a sportswriter for The Birmingham News. He graduated from API with a BA in 1959. Two years later, Hemphill had just accepted a public relations job at Florida State University when he was called to active duty in the Alabama Air National Guard. He was assigned to an air base in France where he began reading books during his free time. He returned to his job at FSU in 1962. The following year, Hemphill reentered journalism, working for The Augusta Chronicle, The Tampa Times, The Atlanta Times, and The Atlanta Journal.

In 1968, Hemphill won a Neiman fellowship for journalists and spent a year at Harvard University where he began writing a book on country music. In the fall of 1969, he resigned from The Atlanta Journal to complete this book, The Nashville Sound, which was published in 1970. Hemphill began writing for magazines on a freelance basis and moved to St. Simon's Island, Ga., to live and write. When his marriage ended in divorce, he moved to Tallahassee, Fla., where he taught at Florida A & M University. In the spring of 1976, Hemphill moved briefly to San Francisco to write for The San Francisco Examiner but returned to Atlanta the following year. A baseball novel he had begun in San Francisco, Long Gone, was published in 1979 and made into an HBO cable movie in 1987. Hemphill based his memoir, Leaving Birmingham, published in 1993, on an essay about his father which had appeared in The New York Times Magazine. He has published several collections of his newspaper columns, as well as novels and nonfiction books. Hemphill lives and writes in Atlanta.

Interests and Themes

Paul Hemphill's novels are set in the South and feature working-class characters. His nonfiction books also have Southern subjects.

For More Information

Please check your local library for these materials. If items are not available locally, your librarian can help you borrow them through the InterLibrary Loan program. Your librarian can also help you find other information about this author.

There may be more information available through the databases in the Alabama Virtual Library. If you are an Alabama citizen, AVL can be used at your public library or school library media center. You can also get a username and password from your librarian to use AVL at home.

Reference Book Chapters and Encyclopedia Entries

• Caton, Bill. "Paul Hemphill: We Didn't Toady." Fighting Words: Words on Writing from 21 of the Heart of Dixie's Best Contemporary Authors Montgomery: Black Belt Press, 1995. 162-171.

Reference Web Sites

• Paul Hemphill On the Web. 2005. http://www.paulhemphill.net/
• Beasley, Carole Ottaway. "Paul Hemphill". The Encyclopedia of Alabama. 2009. Alabama Humanities Foundation and Auburn University. http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-2495
• Monroe, Don. "Hemphill's Return: Atlanta Author Paul Hemphill Calls on a Kindred Country Spirit in His Comeback Bid". Creative Loafing.com. 2005. Creative Loafing Atlanta. http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A113769

Location of Papers

• Auburn University

Photo by James A. Coker; courtesy of Paul Hemphill.

Last updated on Jul 17, 2009.