David Rompf’s articles and essays have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Harvard Review, The Common, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, Arts & Letters, Creative Nonfiction, Hotel Amerika, Missouri Review, and many other magazines and newspapers. His work has been cited five times as "Notable Essay of the Year" in Best American Essays and Best American Travel Writing. He has also written about contemporary art for museum exhibition catalogues.  He lives in New York City and teaches nonfiction writing online at the University of California, Berkeley.

He swims and surfs, and once he kayaked for two weeks around some little islands in Polynesia.