Born in Sydney and educated at Christ's College, Canterbury, and Victoria University, New Zealand, Vivian Hopkirk lived and studied a decade abroad, sponsored by Cinzano in Tuscany and living as writer-in-residence at the Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris. In 1992 he returned to Australia and wrote the prison novel
Meditations of a Flawed Groom, for which he induced a brief stay in a Sydney jail. He has also written and published poetry. Vivian Hopkirk is the nephew of artist
Brett Whiteley (q.v.).
