Ohio 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.
If you would like to know which Ohio authors and illustrators are available for school and library visits or workshops, visit our School & Library Visits page here.
We continue to add authors, so check back soon!
Sherri Hayes
Sherri spent most of her childhood detesting English class. It was one of her least favorite subjects because she never seemed to fit into the standard mold. She wasn’t good at spelling, or following grammar rules, and outlines made her head spin. For that reason, Sherri never imagined becoming an author. At the age of thirty, all of that changed. After getting frustrated with the direction a television show was taking two of its characters, Sherri decided to try her hand at writing an alternate ending, and give the characters their happily ever after. By the time the story finished, it was one of the top ten read stories on the site, and her readers were encouraging her to write more.
Writing has become a creative outlet that allows her to explore a wide range of emotions, while having fun taking her characters through all the twists and turns she can create.
William Heath
When William Heath began writing poetry in the 1960s, James Wright hailed him as “one of the most brilliantly accomplished and gifted young poets to appear in the United States in quite some time.” Now after an award-winning career as a novelist, historian, and literary critic, he has returned to his first love. Night Moves in Ohio vividly captures his memories of growing up in Poland, Ohio, a suburb of mobbed-up Youngstown, the city at the heart of the thriving Steel Valley but notorious as Little Chicago for its numerous gang-land bombings (“Youngstown tune-ups”). Heath’s poems, by turns raunchy and poignant, evoke via his unblinking eye, ironic asides, and acute ear for the American idiom, the dangers and delights of a by-gone era.
In addition to his poetry, William Heath is also the author of an award-winning work of history, William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest. He can be found online at http://www.williamheathbooks.com
John Hegenberger
Award-winning author, John Hegenberger has produced more than a dozen books since mid-2015, including several popular series: Stan Wade LAPI in 1959, Eliot Cross Columbus-based PI in 1988, and TRIPLEYE, featuring the first private eye agency on Mars. He’s the father of three, tennis enthusiast, collector of silent films, hiker, Francophile, B.A. Comparative Lit., ex-Navy, and happily married for 48 years and counting. Active member of SFWA, PWA, SinC and ITW. His novel SPYFALL won a 2016 award at Killer Nashville.
Susan Gee Heino
I was always one of those kids constantly writing stories and forcing my parents—and my sisters, teachers, friends, neighbors, and the family dog—to read them. I wrote stories about everything from animals and Star Wars to worms and haunted school buses. One thing was constant, though: there was always a happy ending.
In college, my talents led my into the Theatre where I discovered writing scripts for others to perform was a whole lot more fun than memorizing
someone else’s.…
I was always one of those kids constantly writing stories and forcing my parents—and my sisters, teachers, friends, neighbors, and the family dog—to read them. I wrote stories about everything from animals and Star Wars to worms and haunted school buses. One thing was constant, though: there was always a happy ending.
In college, my talents led my into the Theatre where I discovered writing scripts for others to perform was a whole lot more fun than memorizing
someone else’s. After several years working with improvisational groups, collegiate drama, small community theatres, church drama ministries, and whatever other job helped to pay the bills, I figured it was time to settle down. I accepted the permanent role of preacher’s wife and child herder.
To preserve my sanity, I took my love of happy endings and began to focus on writing romance. In 2008 I won RWA’s Golden Heart ® Award in the Regency Historical category and my first book, MISTRESS BY MISTAKE, was published by Berkley Sensation in 2009. Since then, I have gone on to publish multiple Historical Romances all set in the fascinating Regency time period.
Today I’m living out my own Happily-Ever-After in rural Ohio with an ever-changing menagerie of creatures, my very supportive husband, and the two most adorable –and frighteningly creative– children imaginable. We are all addicted to happy endings, and that seems to be working out just fine.
Nancy Herriman
Nancy Herriman retired from an engineering career to take up the pen. She hasn’t looked back. Her work has won the Daphne du Maurier award, and Publishers Weekly says her ‘A Mystery of Old San Francisco’ series “…brings 1867 San Francisco to vivid life.” The first in her Elizabethan-era mysteries, Searcher of the Dead, was released earlier this year and listed as an ‘Editors’ Choice’ by the Historical Novel Society. When not writing, she enjoys singing, gabbing about writing, and eating dark chocolate. She currently lives in central Ohio.
Nancy Herriman
Victor Hess
Victor Hess’ first novel, Jesse Sings was acknowledged as a finalist in the William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing competition in 2015. It was also recognized as an Award-Winning Finalist in the Fiction: Inspirational category of the 2018 Best Book Awards sponsored by American Book Fest. His short stories have received Honorable Mention in a recent Glimmer Train competition and one made the short list for the 2017 Faulkner competition. He is currently working on a third novel centered around Jesse Hall, the main character of his first two novels. Besides a successful businessman he has been an Army Bomb Disposal Instructor, and, for decades, has taught Bible Study for both children and adults. He was raised in Ohio, attended college at Central State and Ohio University. He lives in Slidell, Louisiana with his wife and dog.
Dennis Hetzel
“Season of Lies” is Dennis Hetzel’s second novel, following the award-winning “Killing the Curse” (Headline Books, 2014) in which events precede those that unfold in the latest novel.
As a journalist and media executive, Hetzel has won numerous awards for writing, industry leadership and community service, including the 2003 Paul Tobenkin Memorial Award from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for leadership in coverage of race and diversity issues. Since 2010, he has been president and executive director of the Ohio News Media Association in Columbus, Ohio, and president of the Ohio Coalition for Open Government. He is also on the board of the Capitol Square Foundation in Columbus and an active member of Columbus Rotary.
He began his career as a weekly newspaper sports editor in the Chicago suburbs and has been a reporter, editor, general manager and publisher at newspapers including the Madison, Wis., Capital Times, the Cincinnati Enquirer and the York, Pa., Daily Record, where he was editor and publisher for 13 years. Under his leadership, the York paper won national awards from the Scripps Howard Foundation in public service journalism and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. He also has taught journalism at Penn State and Temple universities.
Hetzel grew up in the Chicago area and inherited his lifelong affection for and frustration with the Cubs from his late father. He has a degree in political science and a minor in journalism from Western Illinois University, where he met his wife, Cheryl, a school psychologist and guidance counselor. They have three grown children and a home they love in Holden Beach, North Carolina, where he does much of his writing.
Hetzel also plays guitar and bass in an acoustic trio, “Phil’s Five & Dime,” which includes fellow author Rick Robinson on mandolin. He’s still hoping “this guitar thing” works out when he grows up.
You can find him on Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and http://www.dennishetzel.com. He also blogs from time to time for the Huffington Post, particularly on media and politics.
Leanna Renee Hieber
Leanna Renee Hieber is an actress, playwright and the author of over thirteen Gothic, Gaslamp Fantasy novels for adults and teens for Tor and Kensington Books such as the Strangely Beautiful saga, the Magic Most Foul trilogy, the Eterna Files trilogy and The Spectral City series. The Strangely Beautiful series hit Barnes & Noble and Borders Bestseller lists and garnered numerous regional genre awards, with revised editions now available from Tor. The Spectral City, a ghost-filled Gothic series with Kensington Books, has been a bestseller across several genres and platforms. She is writing a series of works for Scrib’d / Bryant Street Publishing that continue her Dark Nest Chronicles saga of Space Opera novellas and the original editions have been reissued at Scrib’d with Leanna narrating audio book editions. A four-time Prism Award winner and Daphne du Maurier Award finalist, her short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and her books have been translated into many languages. She tours the country with By the Light of Tiffany: A Meeting with Clara Driscoll, a one-woman theatrical presentation about the 19th century designer of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s stained-glass lamps. A proud member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers and the Dramatist’s Guild, she also belongs to performer unions Actors Equity and SAG-AFTRA and lives in New York City where she is a licensed ghost tour guide for Boroughs of the Dead and has been featured in film and television on shows like Boardwalk Empire and Mysteries at the Museum. Her first foray into non-fiction, an examination of ghost stories from women’s perspectives, A Haunted History of Invisible Women, will be forthcoming from Kensington Books. For writers’ resources, free reads and more visit: http://leannareneehieber.com
Gwendolyn Joslin Hiles
Gwendolyn Joslin Hiles was born in Columbus, Ohio, and spent the majority of her youth in nearby Delaware County, just two miles from Lewis Center, a town founded by her great-great-grandfather. Living close to her ancestral roots fostered a love of history and cultural background that was reinforced by a major in American Studies at Bowling Green State University. She began her professional career teaching English and speech but soon transitioned into publishing where she served as editorial manager and art director. Leaving publishing, she continued editorial work in a freelance capacity and added the title, president, of a small commercial printing facility she owned along with her husband, Gary. In 2005 the business was sold creating time for travel and the research that led to a connection with co-author, Margaret Casterline Bowen, and ultimately to Jersey Gold.