Vivian Whiteley Hopkirk was born in Sydney. The nephew of Brett Whiteley the painter, he was educated at Christ's College, Canterbury, and Victoria University, New Zealand, he lived and studied for a decade abroad, sponsored by Cinzano in Tuscany and living as writer in residence at the Shakespeare & Company Bookshop in Paris. He returned to Australia in 1992 to write Meditations of a Flawed Groom, for which he deliberately induced a brief stay in a Sydney jail. Vivian Hopkirk has produced an extensive body of poetry and has continued to write prose.