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.
Morgan Perryman
Brian Petkash
Brian Petkash was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from University of Tampa and his stories have appeared in Midwestern Gothic and Southword, among other publications. He currently lives in Tampa, Florida, where he remains an avid fan of Cleveland sports.
Susan Petrone
Susan Petrone is the author of the The Heebie-Jeebie Girl (2020,) The Super Ladies (2018), Throw Like a Woman (2015), and A Body at Rest (2009), which won a bronze medal for regional fiction from the Independent Publishers Book Awards (IPPY). The Super Ladies was a General Fiction finalist in Foreward Reviews’ 2018 Book of the Year Awards. She is a recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for FY 2020.
Susan’s short fiction has been published by Glimmer Train, Muse, Conclave, Cleveland Review, and Whiskey Island. Her short story, “Monster Jones Wants to Creep You Out” (Conclave, 2010) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her non-fiction has appeared in CoolCleveland, Belt magazine, and ESPN.com. She is also one of the co-founders and former president of Literary Cleveland (litcleveland.org).
L. Philips
Philips went to Ohio University for a degree in music education, decided that job was entirely too noisy, and became a librarian instead. When she’s not working, she enjoys belting out show tunes when she thinks no one is listening and watching the same episodes of Thomas the Tank Engineover and over (or at least that’s what she tells her toddler son). L. Philips is a cataloger at the Chillicothe and Ross County public library in Chillicothe. She was born in Chillicothe, educated at Ohio University and Kent State University, and now raises her son in Chillicothe. She is the author of SOMETIME AFTER MIDNIGHT, PERFECT TEN, MY FAIRE LADY (under the name Laura Wettersten), and the ghost writer of the forthcoming Anonymous book, BREAKING RACHEL.
Nancy Roe Pimm
Nancy Roe Pimm is an award-winning author of many books and articles for children. In addition to Fly, Girl, Fly:Shaesta Waiz Soars Around the World. Pimm is the author of middle-grade biography The Jerrie Mock Story: The First Woman to Fly Solo Around the World. Pimm visits schools and organizations to encourage the next generation to believe in their dreams and to challenge the possibilities. She also teaches writing workshops, virtually and in-person. Pimm lives with her retired race-car driver husband in Plain City, Ohio. Nancy and Ed have three daughters and two grandsons. They share their home with two dogs, one cat, and one snake. To discover more of Pimm’s books, visit her website: http://www.nancyroepimm.com
Garin Pirnia
Garin Pirnia was born and raised in the rock-and-roll city of Dayton, Ohio. She has written about arts and culture for Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Mental Floss, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, Huffington Post, Eater, Paste Magazine, and many more publications. She is author of The Beer Cheese Book and screenwriter of The Finicky Cat, a short horror comedy that has won awards at film festivals and screenplay contests. Music, beer cheese, and cats―she does it all.
Allison Pitinii Davis
Allison Pitinii Davis is the author of _Line Study of a Motel Clerk_
(Baobab Press, 2017), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award’s
Berru Award for Poetry. This collection explores immigration, labor,
gender, and diaspora in Ohio’s Rust Belt. She is also the author of
_Poppy Seeds_ (Kent State University Press, 2013), winner of the Wick
Poetry Chapbook Prize. She holds an MFA from Ohio State University and
fellowships from Stanford University’s Wallace Stegner program, the Fine
Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Severinghaus Beck Fund for
Study at Vilnius Yiddish Institute. Her poetry has appeared in Best
American Poetry 2016, The New Republic, Crazyhorse, The Missouri Review,
Sycamore Review, Connotation Press, Crab Orchard Review and elsewhere.
She is pursuing a PhD at The University of Tennessee, where she serves
as a poetry editor of Grist.
Elana Pitts
Elana is a writer who has been published in 6 anthologies under Lake Erie Ink (LEI) and read at the 2017 Cleveland Drafts. Her first book, Little Wolfpine, was self-published in 2021. In 2022, she read at the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA). She is currently working as a program assistant, going into schools to help students express themselves creatively as she continues her work on new installments while pursuing her creative writing degree. Learn more: https://elanapittsep.wixsite.com/website-3