Dave Hoekstra is a Chicago author-journalist.

He was a columnist-critic at the Chicago Sun-Times from 1985 through 2014, where he won 2013 Studs Terkel Community Media Award. He has contributed pieces to Chicago Magazine, the Chicago Reader and Playboy magazine.

Dave’s books include “The Supper Club Book,” “The People’s Place (Soul Food Restaurants and Reminiscences from the Civl Rights Era to Today” and “The Camper Book (A Celebration of a Moveable American Dream),” all published by Chicago Review Press.

Dave wrote and co-produced the WTTW-Channel 11 PBS special “The Staple Singers and the Civil Rights Movement,” nominated for a 2001-02 Chicago Emmy for Outstanding achievement for a Documentary Program—Cultural Significance. He also wrote and produced the full-length documentary “The Center of Nowhere (The Spirit and Sounds of Springfield, Mo.)” that made its world premiere in 2018 at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville and is available on Amazon, Comcast, Vimeo and other services.

He is Content Developer for “The State of Sound: A World of Music from Illinois,” opening April, 2021 at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill.

He was writer and podcast host for “The State of Sound: A World of Music from Illinois,” which opened  April, 2021 at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, and moved to Navy Pier in Chicago in the summer of 2023.

His current book is “Beacons in the Darkness (Hope and Transformation Among America’s Community Newspapers)” [Agate, 2022].

Dave likes sunsets over cool waters.