David Hoppe

Kurt Vonnegut wrote this about David Hoppe’s column-writing for NUVO, Indianapolis' alternative weekly: "You surely know what the great sportswriter Red Smith said about writing, that it was easy, that all you did was open a vein and bleed. You bleed real good, and your heart is where the blood comes from. If you ever wonder what in hell you think you're doing with your life, let me remind you that you are telling people as reasonable and humane as yourself what they desperately need to hear, that others feel as they do."

David Hoppe’s writing explores the intersections of politics and culture. He has been a writer, editor and columnist for NUVO since 1998, serving, at different times, as Associate Editor and Arts Editor. He has received nine First Place awards from the Indiana Society of Professional Journalists in a variety of categories. His book, Personal Indianapolis (Hawthorne Publishing), is a collection of NUVO columns written since 2001.

Hoppe is also author of the book, Food For Thought: An Indiana Harvest (Indiana Humanities) on the burgeoning food scene in the Hoosier state, and is co-author, with Van Kirby, of On the Table By the Window (Dog Ear Publishing), Kirby’s memoir about his struggle to be the first gay man in Indiana to win custody of his children. He has edited two collections of essays, Where We Live: Essays About Indiana (Indiana University Press) and Hard Pieces: Dan Carpenter’s Indiana (Indiana University Press).

Essays by Hoppe have been included in the collections, Falling Toward Grace (Calder and Neville, Indiana University Press) and Home Again (Watson and McGarrah, Indiana Historical Society Press).

Hoppe’s essays and short fiction have appeared in a variety of publications, including Notre Dame Review, Utne Reader, New Art Examiner, Traces, Library Journal, Bennington Review and Arts Indiana.