Friday May 16, 2008
Biography 
John Ibbitson became the Globe and Mail's Washington columnist and correspondent in May 2007, capping a remarkable career as journalist and writer.
Born in the small Ontario town of Gravenhurst, he wrote plays and fiction after graduating from the University of Toronto in 1979 with an Honours B.A. in English. His best known works from those years were the play Mayonnaise (Simon and Pierre, 1982), which premiered at Toronto's Phoenix Theatre in 1981 and was subsequently produced across Canada and adapted for television by the CBC, and the young-adult novel 1812: Jeremy's War (Maxwell MacMillan, 1991, republished by Kids Can Press, 2001), which has been read by many thousands of students in Ontario schools and elsewhere, and is still in print.
In 1988, Ibbitson graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a Masters degree in Journalism, and joined the Ottawa Citizen. He worked as a reporter, columnist and Queen's Park correspondent for Southam papers until 1999, when he joined the Globe and Mail. For the Globe he served as Queen's Park columnist, Washington bureau chief and Ottawa political affairs columnist, before returning to Washington to inaugurate his column and commentary on American politics and society. Along the way Ibbitson published three works of political analysis: Promised Land: Inside the Mike Harris Revolution (Prentice Hall, 1997); Loyal No More: Ontario's Struggle for a Separate Destiny (HarperCollins, 2001) and The Polite Revolution: Perfecting thee Canadian Dream (McClelland and Stewart, 2005). His writing has been nominated for the Donner Prize, the Governor General's Award, the National Newspaper Award, the Trillium Award and the City of Toronto Book Award. His latest novel for young readers, The Landing, will be published by Kids Can Press in Fall 2008.
Apart from writing, John Ibbitson's interests include reading (mostly history and biography) music (mostly classical) and playing poker with reporters.
He can be reached at: John Ibbitson, the Globe and Mail, 2000 M Street NW, Suite 330, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. 20036 or jibbitson@globeandmail.com
