David Huddle, beloved husband, father, friend, teacher, mentor and writer, died on October 7, 2025, in Burlington, Vt.
Originally from Ivanhoe, Va., he interrupted his undergraduate work at the University of Virginia to serve in the U.S. Army in Germany and Vietnam, where he earned a Bronze Star for his service. He returned to UVA, where he met his wife, Lindsey Massie, completed an MA at Hollins University and an MFA at Columbia University, then began teaching at the University of Vermont in 1971. His books vividly and profoundly reflect on these experiences, the people he knew and loved, and his dedication to the writing habit.
A prolific writer, he published nine books of poetry, six novels, five collections of short stories and a collection of essays. His work appeared in the New Yorker, the American Scholar, Esquire, Harper’s, Best American Short Stories, the Georgia Review, Green Mountains Review, Appalachian Heritage and Blackbird, among others. He received two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, in 1978 and 1987; he won the Library of Virginia Award for Fiction in 2012 and the PEN New England Award for Poetry in 2013; and he was a fellow of the Vermont Academy of Arts & Sciences. Writers admire his “his luminous characters,” “subtle flashes of insight” and “his rigorously conversational talk.” His friend Julia Alvarez writes, “Huddle gives us not just a glimpse, but that rare revelatory and redeeming experience of seeing and becoming … others, which is why we read and need his novels.”
In his 38 years at the University of Vermont and during his many decades at Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English, David was a teacher as generous as he was brilliant. He cherished his friendships with colleagues and enthusiastically shared his love of American literature, creative writing and reading aloud. Knowing that writers need each other, he worked tirelessly to create a strong literary community by bringing stellar authors to campus and, at UVM, seeking to hire not only the best writers but also the most effective teachers. Colleagues write that they began to feel UVM was home when he and Lindsey welcomed them to campus by inviting them to dinner.
Many of David’s former students became successful writers thanks to his encouragement, advice, and introductions to literary agents and editors. He thrived on teaching and served as a visiting writer at universities across the country, including the Sewanee School of Letters and his alma mater, Hollins University. He also taught at the Rainier Writing Workshop for 13 summers. He valued each writer’s experience, perspective and identity. Those he taught became friends, and he often read manuscripts from former students for decades after they had left his class.
David lived vigorously. A tenor saxophone player in a band as a young man, he loved many genres of music: rock, classical, bluegrass, classic country and especially jazz, which inspired his novel Tenorman. He loved to dance in the kitchen while cooking dinner and at Bread Loaf barn dances. He played tennis every Saturday with Lindsey and any time he could with friends. His friend Hugh Coyle writes, “Anyone who attended Bread Loaf back in the ’90s will also remember David’s booming voice calling out “Volleyball!” after dinner.” He loved traveling with his family, especially the annual trip to Cape May, N.J. And in the last decade of his life, he took thousands of photographs of migratory birds.
He is survived by his wife, Lindsey; daughters, Bess and Molly; sons-in-law, Nick and Ray; and grandchildren, Hattie, Phoebe and Hank. He is predeceased by his brother Charles and survived by his brother Bill.
We are most grateful to the Residence at Quarry Hill staff who appreciated his humor and cared for him so tenderly. A memorial service will be held on Monday, November 24, 2025, 10 a.m., at St. James Episcopal Church in Essex Junction, Vt. To attend virtually, go to the St. James website: stjamesvt.org.
In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at birds.cornell.edu/home.
We treasure our memories of him and his many books. They will keep us company as we reckon with the anguish of his loss.
This article appears in Nov 5-11 2025.
This is so David. He was whom I thought he was, kind, patience, and the best teacher I’ve ever had.
David did a long residence at our university, Austin Peay, a while back. He was gracious and supportive of students and faculty alike. He set the bar for a visiting writer. I felt honored to call him my friend.
David Huddle was a great writer and such a kind man. I remember visiting him in Vermont (after a residency) and he invited me and my husband in for an impromptu spaghetti dinner and much laughter and conversation. I also remember his kind words of condolence for me and the poem he sent about his own mother (when my mom passed away) Such a lovely human being he was–
David was such a lovely, generous, and kind friend. I will miss his presence in this world.
I am so sorry to learn that beloved Professor Huddle, a giant in Vermont’s literary hall of fame, has passed away. Please accept my deep condolences. He was my creative writing teacher, mentor, and inspiration. When my first book of poetry was published, David wrote a cover blurb that was both generous and humbling. I will never forget him.
My sympathy to all who loved David Huddle. His words and his teaching have clearly left deep roots in this community. May his writing continue to comfort and challenge us, and may the memories you share bring warmth in the days ahead. Wishing you peace and strength as you grieve.
Always a kind and gentle man, David Huddle, was a brilliant writer, a gifted professor, a congenial poker player, and a dear friend. We shall not see his like again. May he rest peacefully and be long remembered by all who knew and loved him.
I very much enjoyed have Mr. Huddle as my professor during a summer semester at UVM. He was a thoughtful and demanding teacher with a soft drawl and understated sense of humor. Obviously, he will be missed by a lot of people, and he deserves that. Godspeed.
David is one of those teachers who helped me to feel more at home at Bread Loaf— and he forever changed the way I read a short story! He’s the kind of teacher and person who lives on and on in all the best ways.
It’s hard for me to imagine a world without David in it. My friend of over fifty years, nonpareil multi-generic writer, great soul. Robin a nd I can’t describe how we will miss him.
David was a fixture at Bread Loaf. A monumental one. And a Southern gentleman. He was a Friend of the Front Desk and all who spent so many summers up on the mountain.
We will remember him well.
Peace to his family.
Wonderful man and inspiring teacher. I’ll never forget what he did for me as a student.
A delightful and huge-hearted friend. May his dear memory be eternal, and as a blessing.
David was a warm and encouraging professor, a good-humored friend, and a lovely human being who could write eloquently in any genre. So many fond memories. My sympathies to Lindsay, Bess, Molly and their families. May your love and memories sustain you.
David was a fantastic teacher. I took as many of his poetry classes as I could receive credits for.
For those who write and had the good fortune to to share work with David Huddle, this is sad, sad news, and also a reminder of the brilliance and kindness he exemplified in the lives of so many.
Sad, sorry for your loss to all the Huddles; one of best readers aloud of literature ever! Great in class and at the podium and on the Bread Loaf red clay tennis court.
David Huddle changed me with a single gesture: he paired his feedback with an image, and mine was always an Escher print. He used those black-and-white impossibilities to tell me, gently but firmly, to look harder and think deeper. When my writing finally earned a new picture, I knew I’d finally learned to see. His guidance shaped me as a writer and a teacher, and I’ll carry that gift for the rest of my life.
My condolences to Professor Huddle’s family and friends. His genuine enjoyment of my efforts as a young person was life changing. I believe the work I do today as a writer and educator 20 years later is directly related to his example. I’m so grateful to have been able to study under such a giving, warm, and insightful teacher.
This is sad news about an unforgettable man. I sat in David’s classroom in 1988. The writers he introduced us to that summer have become lifelong friends, and I remember the discussions and the way he managed the discussions. Never teaching one or two stories by a writer or the anthologized story, David would teach collections by each of the writers we encountered transferring to us his respect for the way the short story writer wanted his readers to find their way. I once asked him how he managed writing and teaching, and he told me that he would wake up while the campus was still asleep. The summer was peppered with the occasional but always super early echo of his ink jet printer. Lindsey and Molly we’ve never met, and Bess, you won’t remember me, but I send on a sincere wish that the aching sting of grief passes quickly and his memory becomes a blessing.
One of my favorite teachers—I took an American short story class with Professor Hiddle in Lafayette in 1983. The first story was Richard Yates’s “Jody Rolled the Bones.” I have my 1980s copy of the professor’s book Only the Little Bone. The last time we talked, in 2017 or 2018, he recommended Marian Engel’s novel, Bear, which was just as good as he promised.
In class once, he and I exchanged a look when Amazing Grace came up. It was the song the waitstaff sang at the last night’s dinner at Breadloaf. That look, though he didn’t recall it when I mentioned it years later, was a sign of shared experience and, indeed, grace.
My heart goes out to Lindsey, Bess, and Molly, and their families! David was a brilliant writer, and one of the kindest and most generous readers I’ve ever had. He encouraged me and countless others to continue writing, to find what we were searching for in our poetry or fiction. I will always remember how well he lived his life at Bread Loaf — early rising in order to write before breakfast, devoted teaching, tennis in the afternoons! Ah, David! May your spirit of wisdom and fun, depth and mischief, care and love of language, live on! It certainly will, in all who had the great good fortune to know you.
David was my teacher at Bread loaf in 1986. He taught a wonderful short story course and introduced me to lots of writers. I remember him as a very special teacher who inspired me in my own 43 year career as a teacher.
Praise to the end.
A few years after my wife and I opened Blue Ridge Books in 1983, a bookstore in Wythevile, Virginia, not far from where David grew up, he came to do a reading from his new book, Only The Little Bone.
He was kind and generous and congratulatory about our bookshop, and in a not insignificant way, helped it thrive and grow. When we sold the shop and I went to med school at UVA, it was in part due to the confidence I gained from people like David, who believed in me, and offered lots of encouragement. Now, fully 40 years later, I still remember his goodness and grace, and I am sorry to hear that he is no longer with us. He touched many lives, mine not the least.
I am sorry to have missed the memorial service for David, as I was out of the country the entire month of November. I have been thinking of him often, as a friend, fellow tennis player, excellent poker player, brilliant writer, and a very funny man. I feel so fortunate to have known him.
I’m sorry to have missed the memorial service. I only learned of David’s passing tonight. I began taking David’s creative writing classes in the early eighties. I think I took four or five workshops with him. David did more for me than I could say, helping me to make a writing life for myself. Our son, Truman David, was named after him. Oddly, the first thing that comes to mind when I remember David is a moment from one of his workshops when I’d read a passage of fiction aloud and mispronounced “revered”. I said it as “revvvv-erd”—like an engine revving. David slapped his palm on the table, stopped the class, looked at me with slightly cocked head, addressed me in that soft southern drawl sounding both amused and offended, “Revvvveard, Robert? Revvverred?” I’ve heard that voice a good part of my life, usually at times when I felt inclined to poke fun at myself. There was that. And there was leaving one of his classes at night, Christmas season. We brought drinks to class—he brought beer. It was snowing, and he was last to leave. We waited for him outside Lafayette Hall and plastered him with snowballs. He took it with his usual good humor, standing on the top step, laughing. He might have thrown a snowball or two himself. A kind man. A great friend, writer, professor, mentor. I’ll miss him terribly.
I literally began reading Past My Future for the hundredth or so times this evening. For whatever reasons that story will forever have me in its orbit. He inspired me to test a female narrator. I can’t go back. As a female voice, I ca do and say and act just as I believe she might, and not worry about fitting into a gender square of actions and reactions. Thank you David for helping give my characters voice and life.
I was deeply saddened to hear of David’s passing. He was my teacher in the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers. And he supported my work many years afterwards with blurbs and encouragement. I will forever be indebted to him for his guidance when I was a young writer, just trying to find my voice. He was a great influence on me, and I will not forget him.