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Spotlight Author – John Fioravanti

Author Pic Please welcome the Rave Reviews Book Club Spotlight Author for October 2014, John Fioravanti. John is the Author of A Personal Journey to the Heart of Teaching and Passion & Struggle.

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Hello, I’m John Fioravanti, and welcome to the first day of my “Spotlight Blog Tour” sponsored by my good friends at Rave Reviews Book Club. I am so grateful to be a guest today with Elizabeth Love.

My first career in Waterloo County in Ontario, Canada, was teaching high school history. I enjoyed teaching teenagers in the classroom (and sometimes out in the hall!) for thirty-five years. It is my belief that my students taught me at least as much as I taught them over the years.

So, why did I become a writer? You can blame those students I was talking about earlier! Teaching history involves assigning and evaluating a very large amount of research and writing assignments. Very early in my career, it became clear that whatever they were learning in English class was NOT being applied in history class. I absolutely hated reading trash, so I taught my students how to write in my own class. Over the years, the writing lesson handouts became booklets, and by 2002 Data Based Directions, an educational publisher, published my lessons in the book called Getting It Right in History Class.

Two years before I retired, I was approached by Kenneth Tam, a former student and novelist, to pen an inspirational book about my teaching career. He and his parents had founded their Indy publishing company, Iceberg Publishing. Hence, my second book, A Personal Journey to the Heart of Teaching was published in September, 2007, and it won an IPPY Bronze Medal in the spring of 2008.

By this time, Kenneth had just published The Genesis Equation, the fifth book of his Equations series. I loved the series, and our discussions led to his invitation to write my own series inside his Equations universe. I thought that was incredibly generous of him! In another post, I’ll tell that story in detail. I put together a series proposal, Iceberg Publishing accepted it, and I began work on The Genesis Saga. Seven years of re-writes and concept modifications culminated this month in the publication of Passion & Struggle through Fiora Books.

Please join me in my next post when I’ll talk about Passion & Struggle.

AUTHOR BIO

John Fioravanti is a retired secondary school educator who completed his thirty-five year career in the classroom in June, 2008. His teaching career was split between two schools: St. Benedict CSS in Cambridge, Ontario and St. David CSS in Waterloo, Ontario.

Throughout his career, John focused on developing research, analysis, and essay writing skills in his History Classroom. This led to the publication of his first non-fiction work for student use, Getting It Right in History Class (Data Based Directions, 2002), along with an international version of the same title. A Personal Journey to the Heart of Teaching (Iceberg Publishing, 2007, 2008, 2010) (Fiora Books 2014) is his second non-fiction work; it attempts to crystallize the struggles, accomplishments, and setbacks experienced in more than three decades of effort to achieve excellence in his chosen field.

John’s first work of fiction is Passion & Struggle and is set within Kenneth Tam’s Equations universe (Iceberg Publishing). He claims that, after two non-fiction books, he’s having the time of his life bringing new stories and characters to life!

At present, John lives in Waterloo, Ontario with Anne, his bride of forty-one years. They have three children and three grandchildren. In December of 2013, John and Anne founded Fiora Books for the express purpose of publishing John’s books. After four decades of marriage, they decided to become business partners as well.

 

BOOK LINKS:Teaching Cover

Amazon Kindle: Passion & Struggle
A Personal Journey to the Heart of Teaching

Kobo: kobobooks.com

iBooks: iTunesConnect

Book Trailer:  Youtube

 

CONNECT HERE:

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/FioraBooks

Website: fiorabooks.com

Twitter: @FioraBooks  + @jfinwat  (I have 2 accounts)

Blog: http://fiorabooks.com/category/fioraposts/

 

 

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28 comments

  2. John, Enjoy the calm today, because the rest of the week is going to be a whirlwind tour! It’s true what you said about students not learning to write in English class. I learned more about grammar and structure in high-school Latin than I ever did in English. Those gerunds and gerundives… ablative, dative… whew! See how they drilled THAT into me. 🙂

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  4. John I love your story. How nice it must have been to figure out a way to engage your students. You are so gifted. Congratulations on being the Spotlight Author pick. Enjoy your tour.

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  5. This post was so enjoyable, I can’t wait for the rest! I can tell just by your writing of blog posts (and even email) that you are a writing talent! Can’t wait to dive into my first Fiora Book and to share it’s goodness with the world, as I know it will be a truly enjoyable read! Congrats and enjoy the rest of your week in the Spotlight. As you get nearer to Thursday, I’d increase my prayers! LOL

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  6. Enjoy your tour, John! What a lovely post. You are such an inspiration 🙂
    Thanks, Elizabeth, for hosting John on your lovely blog 🙂

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  7. What an incredible story, John! I too teach children, the 2’s and 3’s, and I definitely agree with you, they have taught me just about as much, if not more, than I have taught them. In fact, I have been in the teaching/child care industry for a combination of nearly twenty years and feel that each child who comes into my care, for whatever reason and whatever amount of time, is here to tell their story. I look forward to your future postings and getting to know you better:)

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    • Thank you, Dani. For 35 years I felt privileged to be surrounded by colleagues in education who cared so much about their students. But there are many, many teachers in other walks of life who lend a helping hand to help others learn. That’s what I’ve found in our RRBC family. Thanks for taking time to visit!

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