Originally from Quebec city, John David Hickey has been living in the Montreal area since 1993. He received his Bachelor of Arts in English (specialization in Professional Writing) from the Universite de Sherbrooke in December of 1993. The program prepared him for the professional writing world by offering training in translation, journalism, layout, editing, marketing, and technical writing.
Professional Writer
David started freelancing his work early on in his career, working with variety of clients which included Bell Sygma/Canada, CGI, Walsh Automation, Canadian National, Farabi, and Teleglobe. Some businesses were small, some were huge, but all of them had complex technology or human process that needed to be taught to their clients through documentation. He created Documentia Inc. in 2003.
In December of 1999, David created an elist dedicated to supporting technical writers in Montreal on YahooGroups called Montreal Technical Writer's Forum. Since then, the list has grown to over 450 members, allowing David to be very well connected in the local technical documentation community.
Storyteller
In February 2005, Topeda Hill Publications Inc. published a book/CD of folktales written and performed by David and Dylan Spevack-Willcock (a local storyteller). David is also a semi-professional storyteller and has performed in festivals and events across Canada since 1996.
Biographer
In May of 2005, Dave started the Milestone project to offer his clients professional biographical services (both personal and corporate). This project was an experiment to see if Dave could marry the layout and book structure knowledge of a technical writer with his talent for traditional storytelling.
His first client was Jean Phillipe Martineau, son of Yvon Martineau. Jean Phillipe requested that a biography be written for his father as a 60th birthday present. In late September 2006, Mr. Yvon Martineau was surprised and touched when he received a leather-bound copy of his biography for his birthday. He had no idea this was being written for him!
