Reflections by John Fioravanti
Authors, Books, Promotion

#Author Interview: John Fioravanti

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John FioravantiJohn Fioravanti is an author and blogger who has a background in teaching high school history. That alone (teaching teenagers) should garner him a medal for bravery! John and I have a lot in common and have taken to referring to each other as ‘bro’ and sis.’ So please welcome my brother, John Fioravanti!
My sincere thanks, Tina, for this opportunity to be interviewed on your lovely site. I am truly honored. 

It’s my pleasure, John. I am delighted to have you as my guest. 

Buy John’s books HERE

 

Tell us a little about yourself.  I am a self-published author living in Waterloo, Ontario. Retired nine years, I worked for thirty-five years teaching students to write well in my history courses. That led to my first published work, Getting It Right in History Class, by a small educational publisher in Barrie, Ontario. I am married to Anne for forty-four years on June 30th. We have been blessed with three children and three grandchildren. I am an avid blogger still learning the finer points.

What is the title and genre of your latest book? Who published it?  Reflections by John FioravantiReflections: Inspirational Quotes & Interpretations is inspirational non-fiction. I scoured the Internet for quotes that spoke to me about inspiration and living. I published it myself under my Fiora Books imprint.

Tell us a little about your book.  Reflections is a compilation of fifty inspirational quotes and for each, I wrote a short essay that reflects on the meaning of the words and how they might apply to my own life. My hope is that the reader will be inspired to ponder how each quote might impact their thinking and the living they need to do. We all need to pause and take stock about how we live, and I hope this book will help readers to do that.

What inspired you to write it?  I’ve always had an interest in inspiring quotes, so I was happy to take on the daily task of selecting and emailing an inspirational quote to members of the governing board of Rave Reviews Book Club from our President, Nonnie Jules. She suggested one day that I should blog about these quotes. I took her suggestion and created a blog series called My Inspiration. Nonnie suggested we create a new Rave Waves BlogTalkRadio show loosely based on these blogs. We called the show Aspire To Inspire. Later, Nonnie suggested I rework many of the blogs into an inspirational book. So the answer to your question is not what inspired me, but who inspired the book – Nonnie Jules.

Heart of Teaching by John FioravantiWhat inspires you to write in general?  Teaching was my first career and my motivation was to help young people navigate through the difficult teen years. Writing and blogging is my second career but the motive is the same – service to others. My daily blog post, John’s Believe It Or Not… is my attempt to remind readers about events from the past, many of which are relevant in the present. My other two blog series, My Inspiration and Let’s Talk aim to help us pause to think seriously about the issues we face in the living that we do. My fiction series, The Genesis Saga, and coming soon, Genesis: The Beginning are stories of human drama that we can relate to and hopefully, cause us to think.

In what genres do you write?  I enjoy writing inspirational non-fiction. My first self-published book was A Personal Journey to the Heart of Teaching, which is a memoir based on my teaching career. The second publication was Reflections, which is a collection of 50 short essays based on quotes I find inspirational.

I also enjoy writing fiction. I’ve always enjoyed science fiction and I am a big fan of Kenneth Tam’s Equations series. He’s a former student of mine who invited me to write inside his Equations series. The Genesis Saga series is set inside Kenneth’s science fiction universe, but my work is better characterized as futuristic drama. My two published titles in this series are Passion & Struggle and Treachery & Triumph. I have also decided to begin a new series called Genesis: The Beginning – I’m drafting book one currently. This series will be the prequel to The Genesis Saga.

If you have a blog, what subjects do you write about?  My blog has Treachery and Triumph by John Fioravantibeen evolving over the past three years. Originally, on my Fiora Books website, I wrote weekly posts called My Inspiration – short essays exploring the meaning of and relevance of inspirational quotes I found. In February 2017 I created a new blog site called Words To Captivate. At that time, I decided to indulge my passion for History and created the blog series John’s Believe It Or Not. Each day I research and report on 5 events that occurred on that particular date in history. As well, I created another blog series called Let’s Talk where I discuss controversial topics in the hope that it will stimulate thought and discussion. Occasionally, I write new posts for the original blog series, My Inspiration.

Do you have other publishing credits? If so, what are they?  In 2002, I was published for the first time by a small educational publisher. The book is called Getting It Right in History Class. I used it in class for the last 5 years of my career to teach research and writing skills that lead to the formal research essay. The contents of this book evolved gradually from lesson handouts I prepared for my classes to teach these skills. Before the book was published, these handouts had become several booklets and they became the basis for the chapters in the book.

Passion and Struggle by John FioravantiWhat is your current writing project?  As mentioned earlier, I’m working on a new prequel futuristic drama series called Genesis: The Beginning. Book One is entitled The Comers’ Dawn. The human survivors of planet Earth left to find a new home planet in the late 21st Century in a huge colonizer ship. After a 95-year journey, they arrived at planet Genesis and built a new civilization. The Genesis Saga series picks up their story 600 years after they arrived at Genesis. The new series will chronicle their struggles and successes back when they first arrived. In preparation for this series, I created twenty-five short stories that I posted on my blog site under the heading The Genesis Chronicles. Feel free to take a look!

YouTube Video

Instead of providing us with a short excerpt from his book, Reflections, John chose to share his ten-minute YouTube video based on Reflection 38 – Don’t Kick the Habit – Be Excellent! While watching this video, I was inspired to surpass my habit of not going above 3.0 incline on the treadmill 🙂

Learn more about John:  Blog     Website     Amazon     Twitter
Facebook      LinkedIn       Google+       Fiora Books on Twitter
Fiora Books on Facebook

87 thoughts on “#Author Interview: John Fioravanti”

  7. How lovely, John and Tina. This was a freshening interlude to an otherwise busy day. I love the background music too! Blessings to you both!

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  11. What a fantastic interview! It was so great learning more about my friend and neighbor John. 🙂 Tina, did you know your bro lives just over an hour’s drive away from Toronto? I am definitely going to get the Reflections book as inspirational nonfiction is right up my alley. 🙂 I’ll be sharing this everywhere you guys 🙂 ❤ xx

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    2. Hey Tina, did you know that Deb lives just an hour away from me! LOL. I love the sound of that get-together, ladies! Debby, thanks for your kind words, support, and shares.

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  15. Such an interesting interview. It’s so fascinating how each person comes to the vocation of writing. Some us know at the age of 8, and for others it’s a set of circumstances, a suggestion at the right time, or an off-shoot of something else we do. I loved hearing about John’s journey and am delighted to “meet” another sci-fi writer and RRBC member. 😀 Thanks for hosting, Tina.

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    2. You’re welcome, Diana. So glad you enjoyed John’s interview. I think we all have words within us that need to be expressed. Just like most of nature, we humans ripen at different times. When our season comes, some of us pick up a pen, while others pick up a brush, a chisel, a musical instrument ❤

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  16. Such a wonderful interview to share, John and Tina! 🙂
    Journey into the Heart of Teaching and Reflections are absolute gems and highly recommended. I’m delighted to have a copy of both signed by John. Thank you, John! I revisit Reflections often.
    Wishing you both a lovely day! 🙂

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  20. Hi John,
    I too love inspirational quotes. I used them in my book that I just published “What Did I Do?” and I use them with my blogs. I can’t wait to read your book.

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  21. Tina, thank you so much for hosting John here and it’s lovely to learn so much about him! I feel inspired reading about his throughts and work…wow, so many blogs! I have trouble keeping one up to date! I like the idea of a small personal essay around each quote and best of luck on Genesis series.😀❤️

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  23. John’s blog is a personal favourite so I enjoyed seeing him spotlighted here, Tina! I have his book Reflections and am looking forward to delving into it – especially now that I know the story behind its making! Hugs to you both ❤

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