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.
- You are searching within category(ies): 2022
Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar
Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar is an Indian American writer. Born to a middle-class family in India, she later migrated to the USA with her husband and son. She currently lives in the suburbs of Ohio. She is a technologist by profession and a writer by passion. Her stories and poems have appeared in numerous publications, print and online. Her work has been selected for Best Small Fictions 2022. She won first place in ELJ Micro Creative Non-Fiction Prize, placed in the Strands International Flash Fiction Festival. and is the runner-up for the Chestnut Review Chapbook Contest. Her stories have been shortlisted in the Bath Flash Fiction Awards and SmokeLong Micro Competition. She is currently a Prose Editor at Janus Literary and a Submissions Editor at SmokeLong Quarterly. Her debut flash fiction collection “Morsels of Purple” was released in 2021. More at https://saraspunyfingers.com. Reach her @PunyFingers
e.E. Charlton-Trujillo
Described as “a force of nature” by Kirkus Reviews, author, filmmaker and youth literacy activist e.E. Charlton-Trujillo has written several books for teens and children, most notably the ALA Winning and Choose to Read Ohio series Fat Angie. Their celebrated co-authored picture books with NYT Bestseller Pat Zietlow Miller include: Lupe Lopez: Rock Star Rules, Lupe Lopez: Reading Rock Star, and A Girl Can Build Anything. Trujillo’s short fiction appeared in the Read Across America selection Living Beyond Borders: Growing Up Mexican In America and the lauded anthology The Collectors edited by A.S. King. They are the co-founder of the literacy nonprofit Never Counted Out and a Madriana with Las Musas.
Thomas Crowl
Thomas Crowl is an avocational historian who has published two previous books, Murder of a Journalist (published by Kent State University Press) and Opdycke’s Tigers in the Civil War. His articles have appeared in Timeline, Echoes, History Magazine, and the Central States Archaeological Journal.
Mark Darden
Mark Darden, aka Madison Square Darden, is originally from Cleveland, Ohio and is a 2012 graduate of The Ohio State University. Now residing in Columbus, Ohio, Mark is a sports and travel enthusiast who has attended many sports events and has visited cities across the world. His favorite teams are the Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Indians, Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Ohio State Buckeyes. Some of his favorite places to visit are Washington, D.C., Chicago, Toronto, and Los Angeles. You can follow Mark on his blog, buckeyemuscle.com, as well as on social media @buckeyemuscle.
Keila V. Dawson
Keila V. Dawson is a two-time Ohioana finalist and former educator who writes fiction and nonfiction picture books. Her books have been featured on the numerous best books lists and nominated for various awards. She is a co-editor of No World Too Big: Young People Fighting Global Climate Change, a companion title to the International Reading Association Children’s Book Award-winning title, No Voice Too Small: Fourteen Young Americans Making History, and the forthcoming No Brain the Same: Young Neurodivergent Activists Shaping Our Future. She is the author of Opening the Road: Victor Hugo Green and His Green Book, The King Cake Baby, and Yumbo Gumbo. A New Orleans native, Dawson has also lived and worked in different states, and abroad in the Philippines, Japan, and Egypt. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. Learn more about her at http://www.keiladawson.com, on Twitter @keila_dawson, or Instagram @keilavdawson.
JoAnn Deak
JoAnn Deak, Ph.D., is an author and an international speaker, educator, and preventive psychologist. She also works with parents, teachers, and other adults who work with children as a consultant to schools worldwide on issues of brain development and gender equality. She is also the author of the award-winning book, Your Fantastic Elastic Brain.
Darren Demaree
Darren C. Demaree grew up in Mount Vernon, Ohio. He is a graduate of the College of Wooster, Miami University, and Kent State University. He is the author of twenty poetry collections, most recently Tongues Out in the Garden of Spectacle, (August 2023, Newcomer Press). He is the recipient of a Greater Columbus Arts Council Grant, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the Editor-in-chief of the Best of the Net Anthology and Managing Editor of Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently working in the Columbus Metropolitan Library system, and living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children. https://darrencdemaree.com/.
Raffaele Di Lallo
Raffaele Di Lallo has been growing houseplants for over 30 years, and it all started in grade school as a way to clean the air from his father’s smoking habit. It quickly became an obsession, and he con- tinues to grow a vast array of plants both indoors and out. In 2017, he received a phone call from a friend who suggested that he start a blog, which Raffaele promptly did the next day. There was no looking back, and his Ohio Tropics houseplant care website quickly made it to the top 10 house- plant care blogs on the internet, according to Feedspot. The blog initially provided information on how to achieve a tropical flair to gardens in cold-weather areas like Ohio. Later on, its main emphasis became houseplant care, which remains the sole focus to this day.Raffaele received his BS in chemical engineering from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, in 2000. The thinking and questioning skills he developed in his studies, combined with his passion for growing plants, have led him to become a“plant solver.” You can source Raffaele’s expertise via his virtual and in-person, houseplant consultation business where he helps people work through their house- plant challenges. Contact Raffaele directly through his Ohio Tropics website for any inquiries, or message him on Instagram (@ohiotropics). Raffaele received his Certificate of Home Horticulture from Oregon State University as a part of their Master Gardener program, completed the Green Gardener program at the Cleveland Botanical Garden, is a member of the American Orchid Society as well as Garden Communicators International, and worked part-time as a freelance writer for the popular Gardening Know How website. He also self-published a succinct but very popular guide to orchid care, Moth Orchid Mastery.
Christina Dorr
Christina Dorr’s love affair with books began early when her mother took her to the tiny, red-brick public library in their village. This involvement has led her to become an award-winning librarian, author, presenter, and consultant. She has served on a number of state and national book award committees, including the Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, Geisel Award, and Stonewall committees. This is her fifth book, and the second one published by the American Library Association. You can visit her website at http://www.opendorrs2books.com.
Sharon M. Draper
Sharon M. Draper is a professional educator as well as an accomplished writer. She has been honored as the National Teacher of the Year, is a five-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Literary Awards, and is a New York Times bestselling author, with Out of my Mind staying on the list for almost two years. She was selected as Ohio’s Outstanding High School Language Arts Educator, Ohio Teacher of the Year, and was chosen as a NCNW Excellence in Teaching Award winner. She is a Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award winner, and was the Duncanson Artist-in-Residence for the Taft Museum. She is a YWCA Career Woman of Achievement, and is the recipient of the Dean’s Award from Howard University School of Education, the Pepperdine University Distinguished Alumnus Award, the Marva Collins Education Excellence Award, and the Governor’s Educational Leadership Award. Last year she was named Ohio Pioneer in Education by the Ohio State Department of Education, and in 2008 she received the Beacon of Light Humanitarian award. In 2009 she received the Doctor of Laws Degree from Pepperdine University. In 2011, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions to the field of adolescent literature by The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English, as well as the 33rd Annual Jeremiah Luddington Award by the Educational Book and Media Association, also for lifetime achievement. In 2015 she was honored by the American Library Association as the recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime literary achievement. In 2015 she was honored with the Anne V. Zarrow Award by the Tulsa Library Trust., as well as the 2016 Upstander Award by Antioch College.