John Sean Hillen

Journalist, editor, publisher, media coach and public speaker for more than 30 years.

 

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Sean worked for various national Irish newspapers including the ‘Belfast Telegraph’ and ‘The Irish Times’ in Dublin as well as the BBC before emigrating to the United States in his mid-20s where he worked at the United Nations Media Center in New York and in the American print and broadcast media in the Midwest.

Based on post-graduate qualifications he obtained in medical writing in London, he became full-time health correspondent for a number of years for a prominent regional daily newspaper, The Kansas City Times (interestingly, for a brief period before becoming medical correspondent, he held the very same reporting position on this daily as did Ernest Hemingway – night - aka murder - reporter). His work also appeared regularly in publications such as American Medical News, the official newspaper of the American Medical Association in Chicago, The American Nurse, national magazine of the American Nurses Association, and Hospital and Health Networks, flagship publication of the American Hospital Association.

 

Sean won many journalism awards for his reporting, including regional and national science and health reporting awards.

He left the Midwest for post-Communist Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990 to establish the first journalism schools in Romania as a volunteer with the Human Rights League. He continued traveling there for 20 years, working with international development agencies such as the United Nations Development Fund and the United States Agency for International Development.

He later became foreign correspondent for The Times, London, and The Daily Telegraph, the largest circulation broadsheet newspapers in England.

 

While there, he also became board member and chairperson of the US Fulbright Commission and received national awards directly from His Excellency, the President of Romania, for tackling corruption through investigative articles in my publications and for launching the nation’s first-ever Corporate Citizen Awards.

Ten years ago, he purchased a house in the picturesque rural, Gaeilge-speaking coastal region of Gweedore, northwest Ireland.

 

Together with his Transylvanian-born wife, Columbia, he moved to live there in December 2008 to enjoy what he terms “a refreshing, non-polluting environment offering a delightful level of peace and tranquility to complete a novel and follow a literary career.”

Aside from “Digging for Dracula” - best described as “an informative, light-hearted intra-country travelogue” - Sean has written several books on journalism and media training.