Journalist and creative writer John Gardiner moved to the community of Wallaceburg in the summer of 1985 to assume the editorship of the 90-year-old Wallaceburg News. He worked in that position for almost a decade and during that time he earned several community newspaper awards and established the News as a vital part of the town of Wallaceburg.

Over the course of almost four decades, Gardiner has worked on many community initiatives in Wallaceburg. In 1992, he joined the Wallaceburg and District Council for the Arts and served as that organization’s programming director for many years bringing some of the finest musical talent in Canada to the Chatham-Kent area.

While wearing his journalist hat, he has kick-started two newspapers from scratch, including perhaps the first fully on-line newspaper in Ontario in 2002, cktimes.ca, which operated for 10 years and broke many barriers in the world of on-line newspapers including the addition of podcasting in 2003.

As a creative writer, Gardiner started to self publish his work in the early 1990’s and has had good success doing that. Four small chapbooks published between 1991 and 1994 were very successful and he has now added two professionally published literary collections, Memories for Sale, and My Lefthanded, Backwards, Upsidedown Life, which includes a memoir of the author’s growing up years in the community of Hanover. He has done over 60 readings in support of his work and has sold a large number of books. He is mostly a short story writer and writes heartfelt stories that contain strong emotion. If you are interested in the author’s work, please visit www.johngardinerstories.com where a good selection of his work can be found and you can purchase either of his books.

Gardiner has also been playing bass guitar in rock ‘n’ roll and other types of bands for almost 60 years. Perhaps the highlight of his playing career was a 2015 trip to the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee with the Sterling Blues Band.