I write weird, investigative nonfiction rooted in L.A. & the Mojave Desert.

My new book YUCK drops 3/25/25

Preorder on Amazon

“Yuck confirms Baumgart’s status as one of the leading chroniclers of the California weird.”

—Erik Davis, author of High Weirdness (MIT Press, 2019)

My first book CHINA LAKE was named one of the best nonfiction books of 2017 by Kirkus and Brooklyn Rail.

“China Lake is an apocalypse of the weird. A brilliant, often hilarious, and thoroughly original work of nonfiction.”

—Richard Preston, best-selling author of The Hot Zone

I created the DUMPSTER FIRES in February 2023 to provide an 𝑒𝓍𝒸𝒾𝓉𝒾𝓃𝑔, 𝕟𝕖𝕨 window onto the utterly calamitous and mismanaged situation that is my life. And more specifically…

• The disaster of my current book project

• And more importantly… THE ALLEY outside my window.

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“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.”