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): Fiction
Susan Gee Heino
Susan Gee Heino has been writing romance novels for over fifteen years. She has published with major New York houses as well as independently. Her career began in Historical Romance, and she has also written several contemporary titles for the Love Inspired imprint. Currently she is writing for Harlequin Suspense. Ms. Heino has two adult children and lives in rural Ohio with her pastor husband, two pampered dogs, several demanding cats, and a barnyard full of free-loading poultry who are more popular on social media than she is. She loves to get to know her readers and invites everyone to connect with her on Facebook or at http://www.SusanGH.com
Nancy Herriman
Nancy Herriman has fronted a cover band, acted on stage, and worked in the tech industry as an engineer. Writing is her current and longest lasting passion. She has won the Daphne du Maurier award, and Publishers Weekly says her A Mystery of Old San Francisco series “…brings 1867 San Francisco to vivid life.” Her latest release is No Rest For The Departed. When not writing, she enjoys singing, gabbing about writing, and eating dark chocolate. Learn more at: https://www.nancyherriman.com/
Victor Hess
Victor Hess’ first novel, Jesse Sings was acknowledged as a finalist in the William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing competition in 2015. It was also recognized as an Award-Winning Finalist in the Fiction: Inspirational category of the 2018 Best Book Awards sponsored by American Book Fest. His short stories have received Honorable Mention in a recent Glimmer Train competition and one made the short list for the 2017 Faulkner competition. He is currently working on a third novel centered around Jesse Hall, the main character of his first two novels. Besides a successful businessman he has been an Army Bomb Disposal Instructor, and, for decades, has taught Bible Study for both children and adults. He was raised in Ohio, attended college at Central State and Ohio University. He lives in Slidell, Louisiana with his wife and dog.
Dennis Hetzel
“Season of Lies” is Dennis Hetzel’s second novel, following the award-winning “Killing the Curse” (Headline Books, 2014) in which events precede those that unfold in the latest novel.
As a journalist and media executive, Hetzel has won numerous awards for writing, industry leadership and community service, including the 2003 Paul Tobenkin Memorial Award from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for leadership in coverage of race and diversity issues. Since 2010, he has been president and executive director of the Ohio News Media Association in Columbus, Ohio, and president of the Ohio Coalition for Open Government. He is also on the board of the Capitol Square Foundation in Columbus and an active member of Columbus Rotary.
He began his career as a weekly newspaper sports editor in the Chicago suburbs and has been a reporter, editor, general manager and publisher at newspapers including the Madison, Wis., Capital Times, the Cincinnati Enquirer and the York, Pa., Daily Record, where he was editor and publisher for 13 years. Under his leadership, the York paper won national awards from the Scripps Howard Foundation in public service journalism and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. He also has taught journalism at Penn State and Temple universities.
Hetzel grew up in the Chicago area and inherited his lifelong affection for and frustration with the Cubs from his late father. He has a degree in political science and a minor in journalism from Western Illinois University, where he met his wife, Cheryl, a school psychologist and guidance counselor. They have three grown children and a home they love in Holden Beach, North Carolina, where he does much of his writing.
Hetzel also plays guitar and bass in an acoustic trio, “Phil’s Five & Dime,” which includes fellow author Rick Robinson on mandolin. He’s still hoping “this guitar thing” works out when he grows up.
You can find him on Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and http://www.dennishetzel.com. He also blogs from time to time for the Huffington Post, particularly on media and politics.
Leanna Renee Hieber
Leanna Renee Hieber is an actress, playwright, ghost tour guide, and an award-winning, bestselling author of 16 novels and non-fiction books for Tor and Kensington Books such as the Strangely Beautiful, Eterna Files, and Spectral City series. She writes and narrates several speculative fiction series for Scribd.com. Her non-fiction book co-authored with Andrea Janes, A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America’s Ghosts, was a Bram Stoker Award finalist for “Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction”. Leanna’s Strangely Beautiful series became a 3-time Prism Award winner and Darker Still was a Daphne du Maurier award finalist. A licensed NYC tour guide working for Boroughs of the Dead, Leanna has been featured on TV shows like Mysteries at the Museum and Beyond the Unknown discussing Victorian Spiritualism. She gives lectures and theatrical presentations around the country at conventions and prestigious institutions such as New York University, Miami University, the Cambridge Public Library, Morbid Anatomy and more, focusing on paranormal themes and 19th century women’s history. http://www.leannareneehieber.com.
Will Hillenbrand
Will Hillenbrand is a celebrated author and illustrator whose works include eighty picture books for young readers. In addition to his own self-illustrated titles, he has also illustrated the works of writers and retellers, including Verna Aardema, Judy Sierra, Margery Cuyler, Judith St. George, Phyllis Root, Jane Yolen, Karma Wilson and Jane Hillenbrand. Will has spent most of his life in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he grew up as the youngest of four boys. His childhood routines revolved around the neighborhood, his parents’ barbershop, the Northern Hills Library, playing baseball, and drawing. He now works in a small studio in the upstairs of his Cape Cod home, which he shares with his wife, Jane, a kindergarten teacher. Their son Ian, a geologist, is an avid reader and writer of many published scientific papers. Currently, he is doing postdoctoral work at the United States Geological Survey in Denver, Colorado. School Library Journal said: “There’s not a word out of place in this blustery adventure. It’s a masterful collaboration of illustration and text. This cozy winter tale, with its striking pictures, may appear to be cold but is quite the opposite,” about his book The Voice In The Hollow. Learn more at http://www.willhillenbrand.com.
Janice Hisle
Janice Hisle established herself as a bulldog news reporter—with a heart—during more than two decades as a professional journalist. She would fight, scratch and claw for public records yet wrote tragic stories with a soft touch.
After more than two decades as a full-time writer for daily newspapers, Janice became a freelance writer. She spent eighteen months writing and researching her first book, Submerged: Ryan Widmer, his drowned bride and the justice system.
As a writer for The Cincinnati Enquirer, Janice covered every aspect of the Widmer bathtub-drowning case through three spellbinding trials. Unanswered questions compelled her to write Submerged in time for the tenth anniversary of the case in August 2018. The book’s editor was her former Enquirer colleague, Peter Bronson, who also wrote the introduction and helped Janice publish the work through his company, Chilidog Press.
During her 15 years at the Enquirer, Janice earned awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and from The Press Club of Cleveland. Her award-winning work included articles on teen-driving safety, political campaign contributions, personality profiles, breaking news, investigative database projects and the Widmer case. Janice also became the first Enquirer reporter to do “stand-up” video news reports for the Enquirer’s website, Cincinnati.com.
Janice participated in a panel discussion about the Widmer case at Chase College of Law, Northern Kentucky University, in 2010, and also gave a presentation about the case at the University of Cincinnati’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in 2011.
Janice has been a presenter for a half-dozen police-media relations workshops, including two in 2017-18. She has appeared in video news reports on Cincinnati.com and on the Investigation Discovery network.
Janice formerly worked for The Dayton Daily News, The Vindicator (Youngstown, Ohio), and The Record-Courier (Kent-Ravenna, Ohio), and is a current member of The Authors Guild.
Janice graduated summa cum laude from Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, with a bachelor’s degree in journalism/news-editorial.
Her work has focused mainly on public safety and criminal justice, including coverage of dozens of murder cases, with occasional articles on business, health and fitness. When she’s not writing, she is a sought-after nationally certified personal trainer and group fitness instructor.
Her husband, Michael, is a former TV sportscaster and producer. He went on to become a nationally recognized executive sales representative for a Fortune 100 company. He also is a competitive natural bodybuilder and recently attained professional status in that sport.
Kate Hoefler
Kate Hoefler was born and still lives and writes in the rolling hills of Ohio’s Appalachia. She is the author of numerous books and loves the delicate tightrope that picture books stand on between the light that is and the light that could be. Three of her recent books, Rabbit and the Motorbike, Courage Hats, and In The Dark were Ohioana Floyd’s Pick Honor books. Her newest book, The Couch In The Yard, might allow readers to travel above and beyond their couches (wink-wink). She loves small dogs, pottery, being an introvert, and cheese. Follow her on Instagram: @katehoefler
Danny M. Hoey , Jr.
Danny M. Hoey, Jr., is an Assistant Professor of English at Indian River State College. An Ohio native, he received his undergraduate degree from The Ohio State University. He received his Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing from the University of North Texas. His stories have appeared in WarpLand, Women in REDzine, Mandala Journal, Connotation Press, African Voices Magazine, SnReview, The Writer’s Bloc, and The Hampton University First-Year Writing Textbook.…
Read MoreDanny M. Hoey, Jr., is an Assistant Professor of English at Indian River State College. An Ohio native, he received his undergraduate degree from The Ohio State University. He received his Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing from the University of North Texas. His stories have appeared in WarpLand, Women in REDzine, Mandala Journal, Connotation Press, African Voices Magazine, SnReview, The Writer’s Bloc, and The Hampton University First-Year Writing Textbook. His pedagogical essay on teaching Amiri Baraka is forthcoming from the Modern Language Association (MLA) teaching series. The Butterfly Lady, his first novel, won the Foreword Firsts’ Winter 2013 debut fiction award and was recently named a finalist in the Foreword Reviews’ Book of the Year Awards.
Annie Hogsett
Annie Hogsett Bio
Annie Hogsett grew up in a remarkably small town in West Virginia and earned her MA in eighteenth-century English literature from West Virginia University. With degree in hand, Annie ditched Keats and Wordsworth, followed a guy to Cleveland, and fell into an advertising agency where she learned how to write compelling fiction on a deadline. And how to swear.
Not counting an early attempt lost to the exercise of better judgment, Annie has completed five novels. Too Lucky to Live, the story of an accidental, and exceedingly lethal, 500-million-dollar MondoMegaJackpot— published by Poisoned Pen Press in May of 2017—was the first to see the light of readers. The second of her Somebody’s Bound To Wind Up Dead Mysteries, Murder to the Metal, was released in June of ‘18, and the third is slated to be published in October.
The tagline for Annie’s series is “Murder. Mayhem. Romance. Cleveland.” And it’s all that. When people ask her, “Where do you get your ideas?” she often says, “I steal them from the City of Cleveland.” For an idea-thieving writers of mysteries, Cleveland—gritty, funky, cool old town, loaded up with history and hardship, magnificence and malfeasance—keeps whispering, “Look! No. Really. Look!” So she does. Ask Annie where she got the first line of Too Lucky to Live, “You know you live in a rough neighborhood when somebody honks at a blind man in the crosswalk.” She’ll be happy to tell you where she found it.
Annie lives within splashing distance of Lake Erie in the neighborhood of Collinwood with her husband, Bill—the aforementioned guy—and their unfortunately aptly-named cat, Cujo.