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): 2023
Jean Colebank
Jean is in her 31st year of teaching and loves to make the seemingly difficult concepts in math much easier to understand. Her children’s book, Sit Down Little Prince! A math story about Carl Friedrich Gauss gives readers a little story, a little history and one really, big math trick! She earned a master’s degree in Math Education from Bank Street Graduate School in New York City and a bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education from The University of Akron in Ohio. Jean is a mother, grandmother, avid golfer as well as a writer, editor, and consultant for McGraw-Hill, Scholastic, and other educational publishers.
Abby Collette
Wall Street Journal bestselling author Abby Collette loves a good mystery. She was born and raised in Cleveland, and it’s a mystery even to her why she hasn’t yet moved to a warmer place. As Abby Collette, she is the author of the Ice Cream Parlor mystery series, about a millennial MBA-holding granddaughter running a family-owned ice cream shop in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and the upcoming Books & Biscuits mystery series, starring a set of fraternal twins who reunite and open a bookstore and soul food café. Writing as Abby L. Vandiver, she is the author of the Logan Dickerson Mysteries, featuring a second-generation archaeologist and a nonagenarian, as well as the Romaine Wilder Mysteries, pairing an East Texas medical examiner and her feisty, funeral-home-owning auntie as sleuths. Abby spends her time writing, facilitating writing workshops at local libraries and hanging out with her grandchildren, each of whom are her favorite. Find her website here: http://www.abbycollette.com
Renee Casteel Cook
A Buckeye not by birth but by choice, Renee Casteel Cook is a Columbus-based author of culinary history and travel titles, including The Columbus Food Truck Cookbook and Ohio Ice Cream: A Scoop of History. Her passion for writing and chocolate are equally matched, making this book a labor of nothing but love. Eternally impressed at the drive and dedication of food-focused entrepreneurs and the continuing commitment of generational family-run businesses, Renee strives to successfully share their stories, capturing a curated selection of legacies both established and developing. Her hope is to inspire future creators of all types to take the leap toward what they love.
Karin Cecile Davidson
Karin Cecile Davidson is the author of the novel Sybelia Drive (Braddock Avenue Books, 2020). Her story collection The Geography of First Kisses was awarded the 2022 Acacia Fiction Prize and is forthcoming from Kallisto Gaia Press in 2023. Her stories have appeared in Five Points, Story, The Massachusetts Review, Colorado Review, Passages North, Post Road, The Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. Her awards include an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Waasmode Short Fiction Prize, the Orlando Prize for Short Fiction, a Peter Taylor Fellowship, and residencies at the Fine Arts Work Center, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and The Studios of Key West. Originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, she now lives in Columbus, Ohio. https://www.karinceciledavidson.com/
Mark Dawidziak
No less than Ken Burns has said, “Nobody gets Mark Twain the way Mark Dawidziak does.” The television critic at Cleveland’s Plain Dealer since 1999, Mark Dawidziak is the author of many books, including Mark My Words: Mark Twain on Writing, Horton Foote’s The Shape of the River: The Lost Teleplay About Mark Twain, Mark Twain in Ohio, and Mark Twain’s Guide Diet, Exercise, Beauty, Fashion, Investment, Romance, Health and Happiness. He has four times been the guest scholar at Elmira College’s Center for Mark Twain Studies.
In addition to being a recognized Twain scholar, he has been portraying Mark Twain on stage for 36 years. A television, film and theater critic for more than 37 years and an adjunct faculty professor at Kent State University since 2009, his other books include the 1994 horror novel Grave Secrets, The Bedside, Bathtub and Armchair Companion to Dracula, and two histories of landmark television series, The Columbo Phile, and The Night Stalker Companion. He and Paul J. Bauer are the co-authors of Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover, Hollywood Brawler, the first full-length biography of the “hobo writer” from Ohio. Before joining the Plain Dealer, he spent 16 years at the Akron Beacon Journal, holding such posts as TV critic, film critic, and critic-at-large. https://www.markdawidziak.com/
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.
Mark M. Dean
Mark M. Dean and his family live in Southeast Ohio on a small horse farm nestled into the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. His endeavors as an author, lyricist, and poet are fueled by childhood memories of many family tales and exploits regarding colorful characters in his clan. Mark has had the pleasure of living in ten states stretching from Rhode Island to Arizona while also having lived and traveled abroad. His 20 years of Military service involved 12 family moves which gave him keen insight into the importance of bonding through stories, songs and poems. Mark struggled with childhood dyslexia and desires to payback all those that helped him develop his imagination through reading and storytelling. He has both an Undergraduate Degree from Miami University and a Maser’s Degree from Ohio University.
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/.
Guy L. Denny
Guy L. Denny is a retired chief of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Natural Areas and Preserves. A former director of the Ohio Biological Survey, he is also a past president of the Ohio Natural Areas and Preserves Association.