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!
Christina Wald
Christina Wald is a product designer and illustrator in Cincinnati, Ohio. She has illustrated over 50 picture books and is obsessed with urban sketching and travel.
She started out illustrating professionally for games including the Star Wars role playing game series, Middle Earth: Wizards, A Lord of the Rings collectable card game, Dragon Magazine, BattleTech, Dune and many others.
One of her latest books, Cao Chong Weighs and Elephant by Songju Ma Daemicke, recently was given an NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book Award, included on the NSTA Best STEM Books list for 2018, and recieved a Mathical Award. Other recent highlights include: Paws, Hoofs, and Wings Animal Heroes of the San Diego Zoo by Shari Lyon, the official children’s book to celebrate the zoo’s 2016 centennial, Camas and Sage: A Story of Bison Life on the Prairie by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent for the American Prairie Reserve ; The Wild Life of Elk by Donna Love (A joint venture between the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and the National Forest Service) and many others.
Many of her books are about animals and ecosystems and she often travels and consults with scientists for research.
She has done toy design development for National Geographic, Encyclopedia Britannica, and Discovery Kids. She even has done an occasional animation background and package art for GI Joe. She is currently developing a graphic novel.
She started urban sketching in 2011 and helps coordinate the Cincinnati chapter and is on the social media team of the international organization.
She graduated from the University of Cincinnati DAAP with a degree in Industrial Design and teaches illustration at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky University.
Elise Meyers Walker
Elise Meyers Walker is a graduate of Hofstra University. While in college, she was a freelance writer for several national magazines and also performed in a professional theater troupe based on Long Island.
Laura Maylene Walter
Laura’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Poets & Writers, The Sun magazine, The Writer, Tampa Review, Fourteen Hills, Smokelong Quarterly, Inkwell, American Literary Review, Ohioana Quarterly, Flyway, Crab Creek Review, South Dakota Review, Rust Belt Chic: The Cleveland Anthology, Cat Fancy (yes, Cat Fancy) and elsewhere. She was nominated for a 2011 Pushcart Prize and her novel-in-progress, Opal, was named a runner-up in the 2010 James Jones First Novel Fellowship. She has attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Writers in the Heartland writing residency, and was selected as a scholar for the 2013 Tin House Writers’ Workshop.
David Wanczyk
I am a nonfiction writer (Beep: Inside the Unseen World of Baseball for the Blind) and literary journal editor (New Ohio Review), and I have taught English at Ohio University for the last 13 years. After studying at Holy Cross, I got my Masters in Poetry and Ph.D. in Creative Nonfiction at OU in Athens, where I continue to live with my wife Megan, my daughter, Natalie, my son, Benjamin, and the family heirloom—an autographed Pedro Martinez hat.
I’ve published somewhat widely, with poems in a dozen journals and essays in another half-dozen, and a couple scholarly articles about British fiction. In 2009, I began writing about unorthodox sports, which led to pieces in Salon, Slate, and theclassical.org, and eventually brought me in contact with Beep Baseball, or baseball for the blind.
In 2012, I watched my first Beep Baseball game, and I have followed the National Beep Baseball Association consistently ever since, reporting on the annual World Series and on the ups and downs of blind ballplayers for the Boston Globe Magazine, Texas Monthly, and Hobart. Some of the players came to call me “Book Dave,” and I’m happy to have that book, after quite a few years of revision, forthcoming from Ohio University’s Swallow Press.
Growing up in Western Massachusetts, I was a natural and diehard Red Sox fan, and I fancied myself a great young prospect. One Saturday morning, though, I gave up 27 runs in an inning, and (very slowly) I came to recognize that my future in sports was going to depend on a pen rather than a bat. While following Beep Baseball, I found that what I’m really interested in is the underdog story, and the search for unexpected, uncanny glory. While I covered those topics—once speaking about them on Taiwanese radio—I eventually realized that my obsessive interest in the sport was a way for me to think about the rigors of young parenthood, too, and about the role impracticality can play, and maybe needs to play, in my life.
Through my interviews with approximately 100 participants, and my travels to three countries to meet Beep Ballers, I developed a rapport with the players and sought only to tell an engaging story about them that refused to pigeonhole or patronize.
Lindsay Ward
Lindsay Ward has a BFA in Illustration from Syracuse University. Her most recent books include Barbarians (Two Lions, 2017), The Importance of Being 3 (Dial 2016), and Rosco vs. the Baby (S&S, 2016). She is also the author and illustrator of Henry Finds His Word (Dial, 2015), a Choose to Read Ohio Book, When Blue Met Egg (Dial, 2012), and Please Bring Balloons (Dial, 2013), which was produced into a play by the New York City Children’s Theater in 2017. Her work has been reviewed in Kirkus Reviews, Publisher’s Weekly, The Plain Dealer, and the New York Times. Lindsay is currently working on her newest picture books Don’t Forget Dexter and Show and Tell Dexter (Two Lions, 2018). She lives in Peninsula, Ohio with her husband, son, and dog. Visit her online at http://www.lindsaymward.com or follow her on Twitter @lindsaymward.
Candice Watkins
Candice Watkins was born in Columbus, Ohio. She is a glass and neon artist; a writer; a photographer; has interviewed dozens of musicians, artists and others; and is deeply involved in community arts and music in Columbus. Candy has traveled extensively and her work has appeared in exhibits throughout the country. She has co-authored several books about music in Ohio.…
Read MoreCandice Watkins was born in Columbus, Ohio. She is a glass and neon artist; a writer; a photographer; has interviewed dozens of musicians, artists and others; and is deeply involved in community arts and music in Columbus. Candy has traveled extensively and her work has appeared in exhibits throughout the country. She has co-authored several books about music in Ohio. Watkins’ most recent book, Ohio Jazz: A History of Jazz in the Buckeye State has been nominated for the 2012 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research.
Adam F. Watkins
Adam F. Watkins is a husband, father, and author/illustrator. He spent four years at the Columbus College of Art and Design learning illustration techniques from several of the nation’s best illustration instructors, including C. F. Payne. He has published 5 books with Penguin/Random House and his 6th book is set to release this June. Adam lives in the rolling country of southern Ohio and enjoys his time working, playing with his two kids, Lucy and Fletcher, and exploring in the woods.
Laura Grace Weldon
Laura Grace Weldon is the author of poetry collections titled Tending (2013) and Blackbird (2019), as well as a handbook of alternative education, Free Range Learning. Her poetry appears in Verse Daily, Neurology, J Journal, Penman Review, Literary Mama, Penman Review, and elsewhere. Her creative non-fiction appears in Wired, Under the Gum Tree, Tikkun, Geez, The MOON Magazine, and elsewhere. Laura works as an editor, teaches memoir classes, and tries to keep up with chores on her small farm in Litchfield, Ohio. Connect with her at lauragraceweldon.com.