Lish was so impressed with her work that he helped her publish her first collection, Reasons to Live (1985), which includes "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried", the first story she ever wrote.

[citation needed] Hempel has produced three other collections: At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom (1990), which includes the story "The Harvest"; Tumble Home (1997); and The Dog of the Marriage (2005).

Both "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried" and Tumble Home highlight animals' ability to express emotions and draw them out of people.

She co-edited (with Jim Shepard) Unleashed–Poems by Writers' Dogs (1995), which includes contributions by Edward Albee, John Irving, Denis Johnson, Gordon Lish, Arthur Miller, and many others.

She writes articles, essays, and short stories for such publications as Vanity Fair, Interview, BOMB, GQ, ELLE, Harper's Magazine, The Quarterly, and Playboy.

Hempel has participated in several conferences including The Juniper Summer Writing Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst's MFA Program for Poets & Writers.

[citation needed] Hempel purposefully leaves her stories' narrators unnamed, as "there are more possibilities when you don't pin down a person with a name and an age and a background because then people can bring something to them or take something from them.