Hello. I’m Peter Hemminger, a writer, editor, cultural worker and arts advocate currently based in Calgary, Alberta. My primary interest is contributing to a more open, collaborative and idiosyncratic culture. Sometimes that’s meant sharing art with wider audiences, engaging in conversations around arts and cultural policy, or creating spaces and situations where people are able to learn, connect and express themselves. If you have any projects that you think might spark an interesting collaboration, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

My main gig at the moment is working as the executive director of the Quickdraw Animation Society, an award-winning charitable organization dedicated to advancing and preserving the art of animation. Aside from the overseeing the administrative side of Quickdraw from grant-writing and financial oversight to HR, communications and copywriting, I also co-program the society’s annual Giant Incandescent Resonating Animation Festival each November.

Outside of that, I write very occasional freelance pieces (mostly for Calgary-based independent journalism outlet The Sprawl, and have been branching out into research and consulting around arts and culture, on projects involving municipal arts policies and strategic advice for a provincial arts service organization.

Before Quickdraw, I was the Music and Film Editor at Fast Forward Weekly, an alternative weekly paper in Calgary, and have contributed pieces to a number of other publications. I’ve been actively involved in Calgary’s arts and culture community for over a decade. Among other roles, I host a weekly radio show on campus and community station CJSW 90.9FM, spent a decade on the board of the Calgary Underground Film Festival, and have worked or volunteered in various capacities with the Calgary International Film Festival, Sled Island music and arts festival, Calgary Folk Music Festival, and Calgary Arts Development, and I was honored to be recognized by Avenue Magazine as one of Calgary’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2019 for those contributions.

Feel free to look at my professional resume at the bottom of this page for more on any of that, or better still, reach out and contact me. These sorts of self-summaries are strange, and conversations are always more interesting.

Contact:

General email: peterhemminger@gmail.com

Twitter: @peterhemminger

Some recent work that I am proud of:

• “Losing our summer — and finding it again,” a reflection on disappointment and changing expectations during quarantine, published in The Sprawl (originally titled “Something to look forward to”)

• Monday Shorts, a (mostly) weekly blog series on (mostly) contemporary independent animated shorts

• Wander Lines, a monthly Substack newsletter I started in 2021 to explore the threads between a range of art, culture, science and philosophy

• On LGBTQ2S+ Animation, a free 112-page publication of essays, comics and other pieces responding to queer animated art that I edited and helped compile for Quickdraw

• Alberta Artists and the Canada Council for the Arts, a report and project proposal commissioned by the Alberta Media Arts Alliance Society (link is to a pdf document)

• AM Affirmations, a special episode of The A.M. dedicated to uplifting, reassuring music

• Find more of what I’m working on at the Quickdraw Animation Society and GIRAF animation festival

And less recently:

• A history of CJSW 90.9FM, one of North America’s most successful campus & community radio stations

• AM Gold 2020, a write-up on 100 songs that helped make 2020 more bearable

• An analysis of Calgary Arts Development’s accountability report, from the perspective of a smaller arts organization

• A follow-up on Calgary Arts Developments’ 2018 accountability report

• A piece on creativity and collaboration for the Calgary Folk Music Festival

• An animated tribute to Calgary artist Chris Reimer that I produced at QAS

• My MA thesis on copyright, creativity and Canadian songwriting

• “Don’t Support the Arts,” a well-discussed blog post about choosing words carefully

Professional resumé: