In 1981, Hemingway founded the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition which is "dedicated to recognizing the voices of writers who have yet to be heard".[5] The competition, which is open to U.S. and international citizens, draws between 800 and 1,200 submissions annually from the United States and around the world.[6]
Personal life
Lorian Hemingway is from Mississippi, the daughter of Gloria Hemingway and Shirley Jane Rhodes, a former Powers model. She grew up in numerous places throughout the South, including Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana.[1] Hemingway is one of 12 grandchildren of American novelist and Nobel Prize-laureate Ernest Hemingway.[7] She claims to be the great-granddaughter of a Cherokee chief on her mother's side. Her maternal grandfather, Henry L. Rhodes, was a farmer in Golddust, Tennessee, and an accomplished guitarist. During the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, Rhodes played his guitar to his children as the floodwaters rose and eventually engulfed their farmhouse. The family was forced to flee in a rowboat. Hemingway's maternal aunt, Freda Lassiter, an accomplished artist, would later paint scenes of the farmhouse and the flood, a theme that would run through her work throughout her life. Lassiter was a great influence on young Lorian, teaching her that the choices she made in life were hers alone. Lassiter also instilled in Hemingway, by example, a great love of nature and of all animals. Because of this early imprint Hemingway became an advocate of the Feral Cat Project, and actively rescues feral cats.[1][7]
Writings
Books
Hemingway, Lorian (1992). Walking into the River. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN0-671-74642-1
Hemingway, Lorian (1998). Walk on Water: A Memoir. New York: Simon & Schuster. 250 pp.
Hemingway, Lorian (2002). A World Turned Over; A Killer Tornado and the Lives It Changed Forever. New York: Simon & Schuster. 244 pp.
