John Nihmey

John Nihmey (September 22, 1951 – December 20, 2013) is a published author and founding partner of a leading communications firm, NIVA Inc. He authored Canada's most widely syndicated travel feature in the late 1970s, co-authored a best-selling book about the tragedy surrounding the government exploitation of the Dionne Quintuplets, and authored the critically acclaimed book about the demise of an Aboriginal woman at the hands of stereotyping and prejudice. John is listed in Who's Who in Canada. He lives in Ottawa, Canada and has two children.

John Nihmey was born in Ottawa and grew up in his family's 50s style diner. His father, Philip Nihmey, died when he was nine, requiring that he and his four brothers help his mother (Lily Monsour: 1914-2003) in the family business. John graduated from Carleton University with a Bachelor of Arts, Honours in English in 1976. His first writing assignments were covering outdoor festival events in Ottawa for the past newspaper, The Ottawa Journal.

John visited the Beverly Hills Hotel in 1976 and wrote a feature article on it for the Ottawa Citizen. The feature caught the attention of a departing Toronto Star Syndicate editor, who suggested that he independently syndicate the story and a monthly series on great hotels to newspapers across Canada. Within a year John Nihmey's Hotels of the World was syndicated in 15 newspapers across Canada and, soon after, in a number of newspapers in the US northeast. In the course of three years, he visited more than 40 countries and wrote fun and informative stories about his adventures in hotels such as the Ritz in Paris, the Peninsula in Hong Kong, the Pierre in New York, the Negresco in Nice, and La Mamounia in Marrakech. He appeared as a regular on CTV's Canada AM and was a guest on numerous television and radio shows. Special features also appeared in the Globe and Mail, the Book of Lists, and Travel and Leisure. John discontinued the series in 1980.

John and co-author, Stuart Foxman, wrote Time of Their Lives: The Dionne Tragedy, a fact-based novel that looked at the Dionne Quintuplet phenomenon from the parents' perspective. The book chronicled the events leading to the government exploitation of the Quints and the marginalization of the parents during the eight years in which the Ontario government retained custody and turned the children into a sideshow drawing six million tourists and a corporate endorsement vehicles that led to an industry worth $500 million during the Depression. The book was released in Canada in 1986 by Macmillan of Canada and was both a critical and commercial success in Canada. The Toronto Star stated that readers "will read and weep" while the Globe and Mail said the book was "vindication for the Dionne parents".Literary Guild bought book club rights and Bantam bought paperback rights. The book was released in the US the following year, again to critical acclaim, with book club and paperback rights also acquired. John and co-author Stuart appeared on numerous television shows, with the US book launch featuring an exclusive interview by Bryant Gumbel on NBC's Today show.

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