Trevor Cole is an award-winning journalist, novelist and non-fiction author. He started in radio, writing ads for local businesses in Simcoe, Cornwall and Ottawa. In the mid-eighties he moved to magazine journalism ending up at The Globe and Mail. As a journalist, he has won nine National Magazine awards and still writes for magazines such as Report on Business Magazine, Canadian Geographic, Macleans and Toronto Life.
In the fall of 2000, Trevor left his full-time job at the Globe and Mail to write novels. His first two books — Norman Bray in the Performance of His Life and The Fearsome Particles — were both short-listed for the Governor General’s Literary Award and long-listed for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Norman Bray was also short-listed for the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Best First Book in the Canada-Caribbean region. His third novel, the dark comedy, Practical Jean, published in 2010, was nominated for the Rogers’ Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and won the famous Leacock Medal for Humour. His fourth novel, Hope Makes Love, was published in 2014.
Trevor’s first non-fiction book, The Whisky King: The Remarkable True Story of Canada’s Most Infamous Bootlegger and the Undercover Mountie on His Trail is the result of two years of research pouring over thousands of old newspapers, books and archival documents. Published in April 2017, it quickly hit the Canadian best-seller list. A soft-cover version of the book was released this March.
The Whisky King was the basis for Trevor’s entertaining and educational presentation, providing insights into the fascinating stories of two Italian Canadians – Rocco Perri, the little Calabrian based in Hamilton who became Canada’s biggest bootlegger in the Prohibition era, and Frank Zaneth, the northern Italian who became Canada’s first undercover Mountie.
