Robin Hemley is an American academic and writer of nonfiction and fiction. He is the author of 15 books, and has had work published in The New York Times, New York Magazine, and several literary magazines. After several previous academic posts, Hemley joined the faculty of Long Island University in 2020.
Robin Hemley was born in New York City to a Jewish family. His father, Cecil Hemley, was co-founder, with Arthur A. Cohen, of Noonday Press. His mother, Elaine Gottlieb Hemley, published fiction and poetry.
Hemley graduated from Indiana University Bloomington with a B.A. in comparative literature and from the University of Iowa with an MFA in Fiction. He earned a PhD in creative practice from the University of New South Wales in 2020.
At Western Washington University, Hemley edited The Bellingham Review for five years and founded the Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction and the Annie Dillard Award for Nonfiction.
In 2004, he began teaching at the University of Iowa, where he was hired as the Director of the Nonfiction Writing Program, and since 2000 he has taught at Vermont College of Fine Arts, where he served as Faculty Chair for three years. At the University of Iowa, he founded the NonfictioNOW Conference in 2005.
From 2013 to 2019, he was the director of the Writing Program, Writer-in-Residence, and Professor of Humanities at Yale-NUS College in Singapore.
In 2020, Hemley joined the faculty of Long Island University, where his is director and Polk Professor in Residence of the George Polk School of Communications.
Hrmlry has had work published in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, Conjunctions, The Sun, and Narrative, among others.
His writing awards include three Pushcart Prizes in fiction and nonfiction, first place in the Nelson Algren Award for Short Fiction from The Chicago Tribune, and the Independent Press Book Award for Nonfiction.