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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James Dailey , II
A native of Wapakoneta, Ohio, James Dailey II graduated from the School of Advertising Art in Dayton, Ohio. He is curator of the Dailey Archives, an important assembly of artifacts, early photography, and ephemera. It also comprises the largest privately held collection of Ohio prison memorabilia. Inside the Ohio Penitentiary is his debut work as an author.
Casey Daniels
Casey Daniels once applied for a job as a tour guide in a Cleveland cemetery. She didn’t get the job, but she did get the idea for the heroine in her popular Pepper Martin mystery series. Pepper works at a historic cemetery and solves mysteries for the ghosts there. In addition, Casey has a new series, the Button Box mysteries, written as Kylie Logan.…
Read MoreCasey Daniels once applied for a job as a tour guide in a Cleveland cemetery. She didn’t get the job, but she did get the idea for the heroine in her popular Pepper Martin mystery series. Pepper works at a historic cemetery and solves mysteries for the ghosts there. In addition, Casey has a new series, the Button Box mysteries, written as Kylie Logan. Casey has also written both historical and contemporary romances as well as books for young adults and one children’s book. She lives in the Cleveland area and teaches fiction writing classes at the Brecksville Center for the Arts. She is a frequent presenter at workshops nationwide.
Mark Darden
Mark Darden, aka Madison Square Darden, is originally from Cleveland, Ohio and is a 2012 graduate of The Ohio State University. Now residing in Columbus, Ohio, Mark is a sports and travel enthusiast who has attended many sports events and has visited cities across the world. His favorite teams are the Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Indians, Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Ohio State Buckeyes. Some of his favorite places to visit are Washington, D.C., Chicago, Toronto, and Los Angeles. You can follow Mark on his blog, buckeyemuscle.com, as well as on social media @buckeyemuscle.
Karin Cecile Davidson
Karin Cecile Davidson is the author of the novel Sybelia Drive (Braddock Avenue Books, 2020). Her story collection The Geography of First Kisses was awarded the 2022 Acacia Fiction Prize and is forthcoming from Kallisto Gaia Press in 2023. Her stories have appeared in Five Points, Story, The Massachusetts Review, Colorado Review, Passages North, Post Road, The Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. Her awards include an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Waasmode Short Fiction Prize, the Orlando Prize for Short Fiction, a Peter Taylor Fellowship, and residencies at the Fine Arts Work Center, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and The Studios of Key West. Originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, she now lives in Columbus, Ohio. https://www.karinceciledavidson.com/
Kathleen Davies
Kathleen Davies earned her Ph.D. from Indiana University and taught English and Women’s & Gender Studies for many years before retiring to write full time. In addition to her memoir, Sacred Groves, she has published shorter creative nonfiction in literary journals such as Imitation Fruit, Ray’s Road Review, and South Loop Review.…
Read MoreKathleen Davies earned her Ph.D. from Indiana University and taught English and Women’s & Gender Studies for many years before retiring to write full time. In addition to her memoir, Sacred Groves, she has published shorter creative nonfiction in literary journals such as Imitation Fruit, Ray’s Road Review, and South Loop Review. Kathleen is also an award-winning visual artist, who has exhibited her photography and mixed media locally. For the Sacred Groves project, she traveled to over fifty cemeteries all over Ohio and beyond taking thousands of photographs, some of which are included in the book. Originally from Gallipolis, she now lives in Columbus with her husband, Lynn Slimmer, also an artist and a musician.
Visit Kathleen at https://www.kathleendaviesauthors.com
Robin Davis
Robin Davis is from Dublin, Ohio. She is a senior writer and editor at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. Prior to joining the staff at Kenyon, she was the food editor at the Columbus Dispatch for 11 years and hosted Dispatch Kitchen cooking segments and specials on the local CBS affiliate, WBNS-TV. Before coming to Columbus, Robin was a restaurant critic and food writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Robin has a bachelor of arts in English and psychology from the University of Dayton and an associate’s degree in culinary arts from the California Culinary Academy. Visit her online at http://foodcookeat.com/.
Teri Ellen Cross Davis
Teri Ellen Cross Davis is the author of Haint, published by Gival Press. She is a Cave Canem fellow and has attended the Soul Mountain Writer’s Retreat, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She is on the Advisory Committee for the biennial Split This Rock Festival and is a semi-finalist judge for the NEA’s Poetry Out Loud. She is part of the Black Ladies Brunch Collective. Her work can be read in many anthologies including Bum Rush The Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade, Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington, DC; The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks and Not Without Our Laughter: poems of joy, humor, and sexuality and the following journals Poet Lore, The North American Review, Gargoyle, Natural Bridge, Torch, Fledgling Rag, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Delaware Poetry Review, Harvard Review, Tin House and Auburn Avenue. She coordinates the O.B. Hardison Poetry Series at the Folger Shakespeare Library and lives in Silver Spring, MD, with her husband poet Hayes Davis and their two children. Their website is http://www.poetsandparents.com.
Mark Dawidziak
No less than Ken Burns has said, “Nobody gets Mark Twain the way Mark Dawidziak does.” The television critic at Cleveland’s Plain Dealer since 1999, Mark Dawidziak is the author of many books, including Mark My Words: Mark Twain on Writing, Horton Foote’s The Shape of the River: The Lost Teleplay About Mark Twain, Mark Twain in Ohio, and Mark Twain’s Guide Diet, Exercise, Beauty, Fashion, Investment, Romance, Health and Happiness. He has four times been the guest scholar at Elmira College’s Center for Mark Twain Studies.
In addition to being a recognized Twain scholar, he has been portraying Mark Twain on stage for 36 years. A television, film and theater critic for more than 37 years and an adjunct faculty professor at Kent State University since 2009, his other books include the 1994 horror novel Grave Secrets, The Bedside, Bathtub and Armchair Companion to Dracula, and two histories of landmark television series, The Columbo Phile, and The Night Stalker Companion. He and Paul J. Bauer are the co-authors of Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover, Hollywood Brawler, the first full-length biography of the “hobo writer” from Ohio. Before joining the Plain Dealer, he spent 16 years at the Akron Beacon Journal, holding such posts as TV critic, film critic, and critic-at-large. https://www.markdawidziak.com/
Keila V. Dawson
Keila V. Dawson writes fiction and nonfiction picture books. She is coeditor of NO WORLD TOO BIG: YOUNG PEOPLE FIGHTING GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE and the companion title, NO VOICE TOO SMALL: FOURTEEN YOUNG AMERICANS MAKING HISTORY with Lindsay H. Metcalf and Jeanette Bradley, illustrated by Bradley. Dawson is the author of OPENING THE ROAD: VICTOR HUGO GREEN AND HIS GREEN BOOK, illustrated by Alleanna Harris, THE KING CAKE BABY, illustrated by Vernon Smith and the forthcoming YUMBO GUMBO, illustrated by Katie Crumpton. Awards and honors for her books include an International Reading Association Children’s Book Award, National Council of Social Studies and National Council of Teachers of English Notable book, a Kirkus star, featured on New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, Bank Street, John F. Kennedy Library and Kirkus Best Books lists, a two-time Ohioana finalist, Jane Addams finalist, and a 2023 Charlotte Award nominee. A New Orleans native, Dawson has also lived and worked in states across the U.S., and in the Philippines, Japan, and Egypt. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. When she isn’t reading, writing, and visiting schools, Dawson is traveling, playing tennis, or digging in genealogical archives. Learn more about her at http://www.keiladawson.com, on Twitter @keila_dawson, or Instagram @keilavdawson.
