Joe Fiorito is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

journalist and author.

Early life

Fiorito was born June 22, 1948 in Fort William, Ontario. His father was a mailman and a musician. His mother was a waitress. He had three brothers. He wrote about his family life in the acclaimed memoir, "The Closer We Are To Dying".

Career

After working for several years in community development, he joined the CBC in 1980 as the manager of CFFB Radio in Frobisher Bay, now Iqaluit. He then worked as a CBC Radio producer in Regina from 1985 to 1991. While at the CBC, he was president of his union local and in 1998 he was elected president of the National Radio Producers' Association. He left the CBC to become a freelance journalist in Montreal, where he was a columnist for HOUR magazine, and the Montreal Gazette. '' The Gazette (Montreal), Montreal Gazette''. He won a National Newspaper Award for his Gazette columns in 1995. He moved to Toronto in 1997, where he wrote city columns for the ''

National Post The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper available in several cities in central and western Canada. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network and is published Mondays through Saturdays, with ...

'', ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'' and "

The Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part ...

". His columns focussed on the small details of daily life, with a particular focus on social housing, mental health issues, addictions, and poverty. His column about the eviction and subsequent death of a tenant in community housing led to a public inquiry and a series of reforms in the treatment of elderly tenants in community housing in Toronto.

Personal life

Joe Fiorito is married to Susan Mahoney. His son, Matt, is a punk musician in Vancouver.

Awards and Honours

*1995 - National Newspaper Award for columns *2000 - Brassani Prize for Short Fiction *2001 - Acerbi Prize nomination *2003 -

Toronto Book Award The Toronto Book Awards are Canadian literary awards, presented annually by the City of Toronto government The municipal government of Toronto ( incorporated as the City of Toronto) is the local government responsible for administering the city ...

for ''The Song Beneath the Ice'' *2010 - Al Gosling Award *2011 - R. Gordon Bell Award *2012 - Canadian Helen Keller Centre Award *2021 - The Kouhi Award

Bibliography

* ''Comfort Me with Apples'' (Nuage Editions, 1994 columns; updated

McClelland & Stewart McClelland & Stewart Limited is a Canadian publishing company. It is owned by Random House of Canada, Penguin Random House of Canada, a branch of Penguin Random House, the international book publishing division of German media giant Bertelsmann. ...

, 2000) * ''Tango on the Main'' (Nuage Editions, 1996 columns) * ''The Closer We Are to Dying'' (

, 1999) - memoir *''The Song Beneath the Ice'' (M&S 2002 novel) * ''Union Station'' (M&S 2006 non-fiction) *''Rust Is A Form of Fire'' (Guernica Editions 2015 poetry) *''The Life Crimes and Hard Times of Ricky Atkinson, Leader of the Dirty Tricks Gang'' (Exile Editions 2017 co-author) *''City Poems'' (Exile Editions 2018 poetry) *'' All I Have Learned Is Where I Have Been (Signal Editions 2020 poetry)

References

1948 births Canadian columnists Canadian male novelists 21st-century Canadian novelists Canadian memoirists Writers from Thunder Bay Toronto Star people Living people Canadian people of Italian descent Canadian male essayists 21st-century Canadian essayists 21st-century Canadian male writers 21st-century memoirists Canadian social commentators Canadian male poets 21st-century Canadian poets {{Canada-poet-stub