Theodore Hamm

Theodore Hamm (born September 14, 1966, in Chicago) is an American author, writer and the
founding editor of the New York City-based literary and culture tabloid The Brooklyn Rail. Hamm currently serves as the director of the Journalism and New Media Studies program at St. Joseph’s College, in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

His first novel, Hank Thompson's Blues, was published by Nobody Rocks Press in May 2009. His nonfiction book The New Blue Media: How Michael Moore, MoveOn.org, Jon Stewart and Company Are Transforming Progressive Politics was published in May 2008 by the New Press. His first nonfiction work, Rebel and a Cause, about the 1960 execution of San Quentin death row author Caryl Chessman, was published by the University of California Press in 2001.

Hamm is co-editor (with Williams Cole) of Pieces of a Decade: Brooklyn Rail Nonfiction 2000-2010. And he is a member of the Brooklyn Literary Council, which organizes the Brooklyn Book Festival.

Hamm holds a B.A. in American studies from Rutgers University (1988) and a Ph.D. in American history from the University of California-Davis (1996). Hamm's essays and editorials in the Brooklyn Rail have received awards from the Independent Press Association-New York, and he has also written for the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, In These Times, the Huffington Post and Truthdig.com. In 1997, he received the Outstanding Volunteer Service award from San Quentin State Prison for teaching in the prison's college program. Hamm currently serves as a mentor for the PEN Prison Writing Mentorship Program. He resides in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.