Author Profiles
Ohio has a rich literary heritage as well as some wonderful contemporary authors. Learn more about them here! You can sort by various categories and see who has participated in our annual book festival by using the category search on the left, or search by keyword (including partial author names) by using the search field on the right.
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Jeff Miller
Jeff Miller is a middle-grade author and former camp counselor originally from Kent, Ohio. He loves snow, coffee, and visiting schools to connect with young readers. His mom, a 2018 heart transplant recipient, has always inspired him to face life with humor and heart. He is the author of The Nerdy Dozen series, middle-grade books about video games, friendship, top-secret aircrafts, positivity, and ostriches. His latest middle-grade novel, Rare Birds, is authentically inspired by his personal experience of living through his own parent’s heart transplant. Miller currently lives in Chicago, where he keeps asking his cats for writing advice. Learn more at his website: https://www.jeffmillerbooks.com/
J. P. Mitchell
J.P. Mitchell is an educator, writer, speaker and creator whose passion is to help leaders to link vision to opportunity through the power of words. She is a two-time TEDx speaker and independent publisher of Sweet Fire, an empowerment anthem for girls and women. On J.P.’s favorite things list are good music, engaging conversation, and the great outdoors. She lives in Columbus, Ohio with her husband and two children.
Wes Molebash
Wes Molebash is the creator of several popular webcomics, most notably You’ll Have That (Viper Comics) and Molebashed (self-published). He has also created cartoons for companies and organizations such as the Ohio State University, Target, and PBS Kids. Travis Daventhorpe for the Win! is his debut graphic novel. Learn more here: https://www.wesmolebash.com/.
Michael H. Moore
Michael H. Moore is a U.S. Navy veteran, whose life journey has been deeply shaped by his years of service and his love for the sea. As a sailor and war veteran, he knows firsthand the resilience, courage, and faith required to navigate turbulent waters—both literal and figurative. These experiences form the heart of Sailor’s Compass, where Michael shares the hard-won wisdom, he gained on his journey through service and self-discovery. Michael’s voice is that of a seasoned navigator and a compassionate guide, blending insights from the seas with a deep understanding of life’s unpredictable currents. Whether sharing stories of faith, resilience, or the power of inner peace, he invites readers to join him in exploring the depths of their own journeys. Through Sailor’s Compass, he offers readers more than just guidance; he offers companionship, encouragement, and a steady hand to hold through life’s storms. Learn more at: https://www.michaelhmoore.life/
Chiquita Mullins Lee
Chiquita Mullins Lee is an Arts Learning coordinator for the Ohio Arts Council (OAC) where she coordinates the Arts Partnership and Big Yellow School Bus grant programs and Ohio’s Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest. Formerly of Atlanta, she has over twenty years of experience in broadcast production and programming and worked as a public television producer/director in Nashville, Tennessee.…
Read MoreChiquita Mullins Lee is an Arts Learning coordinator for the Ohio Arts Council (OAC) where she coordinates the Arts Partnership and Big Yellow School Bus grant programs and Ohio’s Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest. Formerly of Atlanta, she has over twenty years of experience in broadcast production and programming and worked as a public television producer/director in Nashville, Tennessee. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Vassar College, a Master of Arts degree from Ohio University, and a second master’s degree from The Ohio State University.
Chiquita has served as the chair and Midwest regional coordinator for the Arts Education Working Group, in association with the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, and has served on the Arts Education and partnership review panels for the National Endowment for the Arts. As a teaching artist for OAC’s Artist-in-Residence program, she engaged students throughout Ohio in creative writing activities. She won individual artist/excellence awards in fiction and playwriting from the Greater Columbus Arts Council (GCAC) and in fiction and nonfiction from OAC. She was writer-in-residence at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts and at the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences in Rabun Gap, Georgia. Her nonfiction, fiction, and poetry have appeared in national literary journals and her work is featured on the PBS American Portrait project, For My People: The Re-Mix. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is featured on the Long Street Cultural Wall in Columbus, Ohio. She hosted the Emmy award-winning program, Traditions – Ohio Heritage Fellows produced by Think-TV in Dayton. She writes and performs with Columbus-based Wild Women Writing, and recently performed in the plays, Twelve Hours and The Shakespeare Club by Dave Carley, and Lost Lake by David Auburn. She portrayed Venus in William Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis and appeared in PAST PRODUCTIONS’ presentation of Sisters by Marsha Jackson.
Chiquita co-wrote 12, a three-woman show about girls on the threshold of womanhood, and Myrlie, Coretta and Betty: the Mothers of the Civil Rights Movement, in which she plays Coretta Scott King. Chiquita’s critically acclaimed play, Pierce to the Soul, premiered at CATCO, toured central Ohio with A Portable Theatre Company, and was featured in the 2019 History in ACTion Playwright’s Festival, which also presented her monologue, Ms. Morrison Speaks to Pilate from Song of Solomon. A member of New Covenant Believers Church, Chiquita leads Word Warriors creative writing ministry. Her picture book, YOU GOTTA MEET MR. PIERCE, co-authored with Carmella Van Vleet and illustrated by Jennifer Mack-Watkins is published by Kokila Books, an imprint of Penguin/Random House.
Learn more at: https://www.chiquitamullinslee.com/
Deni Naffziger
Deni Naffziger is the author of Desire to Stay, poems (Stockport Flats Press, 2014), Strange Bodies, poems (Shadelandhouse Modern Press, 2023), and she co-authored Revenants: A Story of Many Lives, which was commissioned by the Houston-Hardin school district and supported with an Ohio Arts Council special projects grant. She edited Riverwind literary magazine, a national publication out of Hocking College, from 1986 – 2003. Naffziger, a Fulbright Scholar, is a retired professor (Hocking College, Ohio University). She currently serves as poet-in-residence at the Passion Works Collaborative Arts Studio in Athens, Ohio.
Paula Johnson Neal
Paula Johnson Neal is a graduate of The Ohio State University with a degree in early childhood development. Prior to becoming a published children’s author in 2019, she was a preschool administrator for 25 years. Based on her direct observation of young children exhibiting actual or precursors behaviors to bullying, Paula has set out on a mission to create fun and educational children’s books to teach kindness and self-regulatory skills. Paula’s first award winning book is titled I’M GONNA HAVE A GOOD DAY! The sequel, BREATHE, GABBY, BREATHE is a roller coaster of BIG emotions and usage of a breathing strategy to grow the main character and her readers. To learn more about Paula and her books, please visit her website at http://www.PaulaJohnsonNeal.com.
Michael Neno
Columbus native Michael Neno has been writing, drawing, and publishing comic books, coloring books, zines, and minicomics for over thirty-five years. Michael has written (and also drawn) for Cracked Magazine, Caliber Comics, Ohio’s Amazing Montage Press, Silver Comics, Columbus’ Weinland Park Stories anthology, contributed to a comics anthology on Washington, D.C. history, ReDistricted, written and drawn projects for Columbus’ Wild Goose Creative, and written about Columbus history in The Columbus Scribbler.
Among the books and publications he’s published are two issues of The Signifiers, the minicomics Michael Neno’s Dream, Michael Neno’s Life-Changing Guide to Decluttering Your Comic Book Collection, What to Do When Approached by a Creepy Clown and The Toy Box. He’s also written two issues of the music review zine, Abba Zab and wrote/published a set of ten public domain mashup microcomics during the pandemic.
Along with creating graphic designs for concert posters, album covers, illustrating magazines, children’s books and freelance lettering, penciling, inking and coloring for various publishers,
he also regularly writes reviews for the website: Film Review Central.
Among the awards he has won are the Governor’s Award of Excellence in 1980 for the painting The Visit and a 2022 SPACE (Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo) Lifetime Achievement Award. He also received a Xeric Grant from Peter Laird (co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) for the publication of his comic book Reactionary Tales in 2001. The book featured an introduction written and drawn by Ohio-born cartoonist Paul Pope (Batman Year 100).
Jay Nesbit
Jay grew up in University Heights, Ohio, and has also lived in Detroit, Michigan and North Padre Island, Texas. He received a pharmacy degree from The Ohio State University, and an MBA from Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi. He is married with two adult children and two grandchildren. Jay was Clinical Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice for Northeast Ohio Medical University. An entrepreneur, he owned a pharmacy, a travel magazine, and a trophy & awards business. He has also been a real estate investor, and owns several investment homes and condominiums. Jay currently works full-time as a content creator and author, and part-time as a behavioral health pharmacist. Jay lives in Cleveland, and in St. Petersburg, Florida, during the winter months. During his leisure time, you can find Jay exploring the latest arrivals at local libraries and bookstores. He also enjoys savoring a Cleveland Orchestra concert at Severance Hall, or immersing himself in new exhibits at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Jay, alongside his wife Joyce, enjoys attending weekly summer programs at Chautauqua Institution in southwestern New York state.
Melica Niccole
Melica Niccole is a native resident of Columbus, Ohio where she is an mother, author, poet, and Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor. Growing up on the Southeast Side of Columbus, she attended schools such as: Livingston Elementary, Barrett Middle, and Briggs High Schools. She also lived in New Jersey for approximately five years, where she co-founded an annual Children’s Book Festival in Camden, New Jersey, collected over 250 children’s books for book drives, collected book bags for a New York elementary school, and participated in local events.
She developed a fondness of writing and creating things at an early age. Writing was a creative expressive technique that she used to talk about various subject matters, such as relationships, domestic violence, friendships, and more. These subjects were mainly expressed in the form poetry.
After graduating from college, Melica sought to be a published author. Although she did not become a published author right after her undergraduate work at Otterbein University, the drive and determination within her stayed the same. She has performed in front of audiences at The National Black Book Festival, Inspired Word NYC, The Ohio State University, Newark Public Library (New Jersey), Laughin & Loungin, Writing Wrongs Poetry open mic events, and other places around the country. Her hard work finally paid off in August of 2010 when she released her first book titled, Dead Wrong. She has written 22 books/Kindle Vellas with 2 Children’s Books in development.
Melica has a Master’s Degree in Science Administration with a concentration in Health Services and a certificate in Human Resources from Central Michigan University. Her Bachelor’s of Arts Degree is in Health Promotion and Fitness from Otterbein University. In 2012, she was deemed the first alumni to receive the Author of the Month distinction at Otterbein. She was then awarded the Diversity (2018) and Leadership and Citizenship Awards (2019) from Otterbein as well, due to her work with planning and creating programming and collecting literacy items for disadvantaged populations. In 2022, Melica participated in Otterbein’s first African-American Read-In Program, which was an initiative developed by the National Council of Teachers of English. The initiative allows various schools and organizations to create similar programs based on their resources.
Melica loves living outside the box and creating new and exciting things. She believes that anything is possible with passion and determination. She has worked with individuals with Developmental Disabilities, Mental Health Diagnosis, At-risk youth, children, and various populations for about 15 years.