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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Photo of Kari Gunter-Seymour

Kari Gunter-Seymour

As Poet Laureate of Ohio, Kari Gunter-Seymour focuses on lifting up underrepresented voices throughout Appalachia, including incarcerated teens and adults and women in recovery. Her poetry collections include Dirt Songs (EastOver Press 2024); Alone in the House of My Heart (Ohio University Swallow Press, 2022), finalist for the NIEA award; and A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen (Sheila Na Gig Editions, 2020), winner of the 2020 Ohio Poet of the Year Award.…Read More

As Poet Laureate of Ohio, Kari Gunter-Seymour focuses on lifting up underrepresented voices throughout Appalachia, including incarcerated teens and adults and women in recovery. Her poetry collections include Dirt Songs (EastOver Press 2024); Alone in the House of My Heart (Ohio University Swallow Press, 2022), finalist for the NIEA award; and A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen (Sheila Na Gig Editions, 2020), winner of the 2020 Ohio Poet of the Year Award. A ninth generation Appalachian, she is the editor of I Thought I Heard A Cardinal Sing: Ohio’s Appalachian Voices, which received the 2023 “Book of the Year Award” from the American Book Fest and funded by the Academy of American Poets and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and the Women of Appalachia Project’s anthology series, Women Speak.

Gunter-Seymour is a retired instructor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University; the host of Spoken & Heard, a seasonal performance series featuring poets, writers, and musicians from across the country; a Pillars of Prosperity Fellow for the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio and an artist in residence for the Writing the Land project. Her work has been featured on Verse Daily, World Literature Today, The New York Times, and Poem-a-Day. Find her online at http://www.karigunterseymourpoet.com, or on Instagram and Threads  @karigunterseymour.