Driver’s Diary: Death at the Mouth of Flowers

During a 40-year international media career in both Europe and the US, Sean Hillen has been war correspondent, medical and science reporter, arts reviewer, travel writer, editor and publisher, as well as media trainer and creative writing coach at ‘Ireland Writing Retreat.’ Born in west Belfast, northern Ireland, Sean cut his teeth in journalism at his local paper, the ‘Andersonstown News’ where he wrote a weekly column before working for Belfast Telegraph newspapers, The Irish Echo and The Irish Times. Emigrating to the United States, Sean worked at the United Nations Media Center in New York before moving to Kansas City with Scripps Howard Broadcasting and then The Kansas City Times, becoming the daily newspaper’s health and science correspondent. Sean’s writings have also appeared in other newspapers including Time magazine, The Wall Street Journal, the Daily Mail, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Business Post, as well as specialised publications such as American Medical News, the national newspaper of the American Medical Association, American Nurse, national magazine of the American Nurses Association, and Nursing Times in England. After winning regional and national journalism awards, Sean left the US for Eastern Europe when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, as a volunteer with the Human Rights League to establish the first post-Communist journalism schools in Romania. This led to him working with international aid agencies such as the United Na tions Development Fund, Soros Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, British Council and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). He then became a foreign correspondent for The Times and The Daily Tel   egraph, London, before establishing his own national publishing and events company based in Bucharest for 15 years. Sean earned two postgraduate degrees, in journalism at City University, London, and economics at University College Dublin (UCD). He was also elected national chairperson of the US Fulbright Commission in Romania, a position he held for four years and was also honoured by the President of Romania for launching the nation’s first-ever Corporate Citizen, Civic Journalism and Community Service Awards. Sean’s other books include a memoir entitled ‘Digging for Dracula’ about his experiences in eastern Europe on the trail of the legendary vampire and contemporary novel, ‘Pretty Ugly,’ linking Ireland and the US and focusing on corruption in the lucrative cosmetics industry. His travel and entertainment writing can be found at Worlditineraries.co and JustLuxe.com Sean shares his life with his Transylvanian medical herbalist wife, Columbia, and three enchanting dogs, two Irish collies - Siog (‘fairy’ in Irish) and Lugh (the Celtic Sun God) - and an intelligent rescue dog from Romania aptly named Einstein. They live most of the year in the ‘Forgotten County’ of Donegal, the most northwesterly region of Ireland, with the rugged landscape of the ‘Wild Atlantic Way’ as a magnificent backdrop. seanhillenauthor.com