Hank Nuwer is a full-time author who lives near Indianapolis. His eighteen books have titles such as Wrongs of Passage, High School Hazing, Broken Pledges: the Deadly Rite of Hazing and The Legend of Jesse Owens. Broken Pledges was adapted for the screen as an NBC-TV movie called Moment of Truth: Broken Pledges, with Linda Gray and Barry Bonds, a San Francisco Giants baseball player.

Nuwer has been interviewed about ways to combat hazing and binge drinking by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, NBC Nightly News, Fox on Education, and the ABC Home Show.

He was a panelist on a 1998 national videoconference about hazing sponsored by Black Issues in Higher Education, and he appeared in a popular educational video on hazing, Friendly Fire. In 1999, he served as an advisor to the Alfred University Presidential Commission on Athletics which conducted a nationwide study of attitudes toward hazing among NCAA athletes.

Nuwer’s byline has appeared on articles in Human Behavior, Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Equinox of Canada, The Nation, GQ, Sport, Inside Sports, Outside, Writer’s Digest, American Legion Magazine and in many professional journals. His first two checks for writing came from the Buffalo Evening News in 1963.

One of his favorite writing assignments was a chance to become a minor league baseball first baseman in spring training for a club managed by baseball legend, Felipe Alou. He also played first base on a magazine assignment for the Indianapolis Clowns after the famous black baseball team became integrated (but remained fun to watch). Over the years he has written profiles of well-known figures such as Kurt Vonnegut, Joe Paterno. Harry Crews, George Brett, George Plimpton, Steve Alford and Marge Schott. Nuwer’s interviews with Vonnegut, Plimpton, Crews, James Dickey and Jack Schaefer are included in various anthologies of interviews with writers. All are still in print.

As an author and social critic, Nuwer’s biography is included in such well-known Marquis reference works as Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the South and Southwest, and Who’s Who in the Media and Communication.

Since 1994 he has taught classes at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI) as an Indiana University School of Journalism adjunct professor. From 1995 to 1997 he was a visiting associate professor of journalism at the University of Richmond in Virginia. In 1988, while a faculty member at Ball State University, he was named the College Media Advisers national honor roll magazine adviser of the year.

Holder of a bachelor's degree in English education from Buffalo State College, he was named a BSC distinguished alum in 1999. His master’s degree is in English from New Mexico Highlands University.

Nuwer’s passions as a journalist include student press freedom issues. He has also worked as a volunteer writing teacher with Job Corps youth.
 

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