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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Heather Shumaker
Heather Shumaker is the author of books for children and adults.
Her newest book, The Griffins of Castle Cary, is charming and slightly spooky adventure for middle grade readers, ages 8-12 (Simon & Schuster, 2019). The story features three plucky siblings, a ginormous, drooly Newfoundland dog, and a bit of a ghost problem.
Heather is a nationally known speaker who frequently keynotes and teaches workshops. She speaks at early childhood conferences around the U.S. and Canada, as well as schools, libraries and writing conferences. She loves to share her joy of books and children with audiences everywhere.
She’s the author of three nonfiction books, including Saving Arcadia, a narrative nonfiction book about Great Lakes land conservation. Saving Arcadia (Wayne State, 2017) has won state and national awards including: Michigan Notable Book Award, Eric Hoffer Award finalist, and Next Generation Indie Book – Environment Winner. Her nonfiction parenting/ education books (It’s OK Not to Share, Tarcher Penguin, 2012 and It’s OK to Go Up the Slide Tarcher Penguin RandomHouse, 2016) have been translated into Arabic, Chinese, French, Korean, Romanian, and Russian.
Heather was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio. She holds a BA in sociology/ anthropology from Swarthmore College and an MS in land resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Today Heather lives in Traverse City, Michigan with her husband and two children.
Cristina Sicard
Cristina Sicard, children’s author who brought you the lovable llama Harmony, carries on wanting to help children and adults alike through compelling storytelling. Resembling Cristina’s own battles with mental health, Sábana and Lula are characters she hopes to connect with individuals and elevate diversity and inclusion. To calm her worries, Cristina loves to take walks in the sunshine, laugh at herself and the messages her Dominican family sends in WhatsApp, pose with her gorgeous cat Cloudy, dance in front of mirrors, and work on projects with her out of this world Mami.
Carter Sickels
Carter Sickels is the author of The Prettiest Star (Hub City Press, 2020), winner of the Southern Book Prize, the Ohioana Book Award in Fiction, and the Weatherford Award, and the novel The Evening Hour (Bloomsbury, 2012). His debut novel The Evening Hour (Bloomsbury), a 2013 Oregon Book Award finalist and a Lambda Literary Award finalist, was adapted into a feature film that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Oxford American, Poets & Writers, Guernica, and Catapult. He lives in Cincinnati.
Rox Siles
Rox Siles was born in Bolivia and moved at a young age to the United States. She grew up in Michigan where she got married and attended medical school. She currently works as a physician in Ohio.She developed a passion for writing children’s books after reading bedtime stories with her son. One night, they couldn’t agree on which book to read. It was at that moment they created, “Charlie the Turtle and the Muddy Birthday Cake.” Rox discovered her first illustrator, Monica Kimmell, after seeing her fantastic chalk art drawings on their hometown’s sidewalks. After a recent visit to a local Ohio farm, Rox was inspired to write her first bilingual book, “Paco the Alpaca (Paco la Alpaca) Goes to the Dentist (Va al Dentista.” She knew Martynas Marchiusm would be perfect to bring Paco to life.In her free time, Rox enjoys spending time with her family and their two dogs, Tika and Jazz. Her stories are often influenced by their family adventures and her Spanish heritage. Rox’s goal is to share positive messages with children through her bilingual books.
Marisa Silver
Marisa Silver is an author, screenwriter and film director. She is the winner of the 2017 Fiction Ohioana Book Award for Little Nothing.
Annette Dauphin Simon
Annette Dauphin Simon is the author and illustrator of several books for young readers, including Mocking Birdies and Robot Zombie Frankenstein! A former advertising creative director, she first found spine poetry—or spine poetry found her—as a bookseller in an independent bookshop. A proud parent of two lovely grown humans and one who lives yet in her heart, Annette’s at home in Southport, North Carolina. And any place with a book. Learn more at: https://annettesimon.net/
Curtis Sittenfeld
Curtis Sittenfeld is the bestselling author of six novels, including Prep, American Wife, Eligible and Rodham—and one story collection, You Think It, I’ll Say It. Her books have been selected by The New York Times, Time, Entertainment Weekly, and People for their “Ten Best Books of the Year” lists, optioned for television and film, and translated into thirty languages. Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and Esquire, and her non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Time, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, Slate, and on “This American Life.” A Cincinnati native, Curtis now lives in Minneapolis.
Erik Jon Slangerup
Erik Jon Slangerup grew up in a magical time, before cell phones or the internet. It was called the 80s. He spent most of it roaming outdoors unsupervised, which inspired him to write tales of adventure. Molly and the Machine is Book #1 of Far Flung Falls, a new middle-grade 80s adventure series. The sequel is Molly and the Mutants. Erik has also written several picture books, including the award-winning Dirt Boy. He is the father of six, which has been his biggest adventure yet. He lives in Columbus, Ohio. Discover more at http://www.erikjonslangerup.com/.
Terri-Lynne Smiles
Possessing “a native talent for imaginative storytelling” (Midwest Book Review) and being “skilled at crafting a nuanced page turner” (The Kirkus Review), Terri-Lynne Smiles creates novels filled with realistic characters, a quick pace, and a puzzle for the readers and characters to chew on. Her writing is diverse, ranging from The Rothston Series (2012-2016), a set of young adult/new adult urban fantasy novels, to Mirror Protocol (2016), a psychological murder mystery without a murder, to the sci-fi thriller Sarandipity (in development), set in a future in which sources of strife have been banned on Earth and humankind is spread across the stars.
Raised in a family of educators, Terri is passionate not only about writing but also teaching the craft. While she speaks on and teaches a wide variety of topics, her favorites include How to Develop a Plot; Crafting Believable Heroes and Villains; Pacing and Tension; and Race in Non-Racial Fiction. She has appeared at book clubs, participated in panels across the country, and has taught workshops at a variety of venues such as the Thurber House, the Upper Arlington Public Library, and the creative writing conference Imaginarium.
Terri-Lynne is committed to the charitable sector, serving as board chair for the Ohio Association of Nonprofit Organizations as well as volunteering with numerous community organizations.
For more information or to contact Terri-Lynne, see her website at http://www.terrilynnesmiles.com.
Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith is the author of The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, winner of the Dorset Prize; Lamp of the Body, winner of the Benjamin Saltman Award; and three prizewinning chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Georgia Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and The Southern Review, among many others. A 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, Smith has also received fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and elsewhere. Smith is a Contributing Editor to the Kenyon Review and a Visiting Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at The Ohio State University. She lives in Bexley, Ohio, with her husband, Jason Beehler, and their two children.