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.
- You are searching within category(ies): 2024
Jane Ann Turzillo
Jane Ann Turzillo is the author of ten books. She has been nominated twice for the Agatha for Wicked Women of Ohio and Unsolved Murders & Disappearances in Northeast Ohio. She is also a National Federation of Press Women award-winner for Wicked Cleveland, Ohio Train Disasters, and others. A full-time author and speaker, she concentrates on true crime and history. Her current book is Northern Ohio Cold Cases. As one of the original owners of a large weekly newspaper, she covered police, fire and hard news. Visit her website at http://www.janeannturzillo.com.
Thrity Umrigar
Thrity Umrigar is the bestselling author of nine previous novels, including Honor, which was a Reese’s Book Club Pick, as well as three picture books and a memoir. Her books have been published in over fifteen countries and in several languages. A former journalist, she has contributed to The Washington Post, the Boston Globe, The New York Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and other newspapers. She is a recipient of the Nieman Fellowship to Harvard, and winner of the Cleveland Arts Prize, the Seth Rosenberg prize and a Lambda Literary award. She is currently a Distinguished University Professor of English at Case Western Reserve University.
Carmella Van Vleet
Carmella Van Vleet is a former teacher who has been a full-time author for over 20 years. She’s the author of over a dozen books, both fiction and non-fiction, for kids of all ages. Her debut middle grade novel, Eliza Bing Is (Not) A Big Fat Quitter, received the Christopher Award and was featured on multiple state award lists, including Choose to Read Ohio. And her most recent middle grade, Nothing Is Little, was a 2023 Ohioana Book Award finalist. She lives in Ohio and can be found online at: https://carmellavanvleet.com/.
Andrea Wang
Andrea Wang is an acclaimed author of children’s books. Her picture book Watercress was awarded the Caldecott Medal, a Newbery Honor, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, the Ohioana Book Award, and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor, among other accolades. Her other books, The Many Meanings of Meilan, Luli and the Language of Tea, Magic Ramen, and The Nian Monster, have also received awards and starred reviews. Her work explores culture, creative thinking, and identity. She lives in Colorado with her family. For more information about Andrea and her books, visit https://andreaywang.com/.
Jessica Weyer-Bentley
Jessica Weyer Bentley is an author/poet. Her first collection of poetry, Crimson Sunshine, was published in May 2020 by AlyBlue Media. Her second collection, Down Below Where the Canary Sings, was published in May of 2023 by Sage Owl Publishing in Massachusetts. She has contributed work to several publications for the Award-Winning Book Series, Grief Diaries. Jessica’s work has been published in countless anthologies both in print and online. She is the Ohio Poetry Association Student Contest Chair. Jessica grew up in the hills of Eastern Kentucky and currently resides in Northwest Ohio with her husband, Larry, and her two children, Laura and Joseph.
Ashley Willow
Ashley Willow lives in a small town in Wayne County, Ohio where she spends her days working and her nights staying up way too late creating fictional lives. She has always loved to write and can either be found writing, reading, or somehow doing both. As an avid reader, she creates stories she would want to read. When she isn’t writing, she can be found spending time with her husband, children, three cats, and her big hairy dog. Her debut novel, Stars of Life, is only the beginning. What started out as a stand-alone novel will be a completed series by the end of 2024.
Jacqueline Woodson
Jacqueline Woodson (jacquelinewoodson.com) is the author of more than thirty books for young people and adults including Another Brooklyn, Red At The Bone, and The Day You Begin. She received a 2023 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a 2023 E. B. White Award, a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the 2018 Children’s Literature Legacy Award, and was the 2018–2019 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Her New York Times bestselling memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming, won the National Book Award, the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, and the NAACP Image Award. Her books for young readers include Coretta Scott King Award and NAACP Image Award winner Before the Ever After, New York Times bestsellers The Day You Begin, and Harbor Me, Newbery Honor winners Feathers, Show Way, After Tupac and D Foster, and Each Kindness. In 2018, she founded BALDWIN FOR THE ARTS (https://baldwinforthearts.org), a residency serving writers, composers, interdisciplinary, and visual artists of the Global Majority. Her most recent novel, Remember Us, is set in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn.