He got his professional start as a part-time sports reporter for the Arkansas Gazette during his senior year of high school.

[2] He worked his way through college and graduate school as a journalist, earning a BA in English Literature with a minor in science in 1972 from the University of Arkansas, Phi Beta Kappa, and an MA in English literature from the University of Oregon in 1979.

He then joined the editorial staff of the Eugene Register Guard in 1976 in Oregon, where he was instrumental in implementing one of the first all-electronic newsrooms in the U.S.

[4] Hemingway has co-authored five books and has written a three-volume series that speculates on what could have happened during a seven-year span in which little is known of Jane Austen's life.

[5] He has published 17 essays in Austen journals or magazines and speaks regularly at related events.