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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Robb Forman Dew
Robb Forman Dew was born in Mount Vernon, Ohio, and grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For the past thirty years she has lived in Williamstown, MA, where she lives with her husband, who is professor of history at Williams College. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Dew is the author of the novels Dale Loves Sophie to Death, for which she received the National Book Award; The Time of Her Life; Fortunate Lives; The Evidence Against Her; and, most recently, The Truth of the Matter; as well as a memoir, The Family Heart.
Read MoreRobb Forman Dew was born in Mount Vernon, Ohio, and grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For the past thirty years she has lived in Williamstown, MA, where she lives with her husband, who is professor of history at Williams College. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Dew is the author of the novels Dale Loves Sophie to Death, for which she received the National Book Award; The Time of Her Life; Fortunate Lives; The Evidence Against Her; and, most recently, The Truth of the Matter; as well as a memoir, The Family Heart.
Srirupa Dhar
Srirupa Dhar is Indian by birth and has been living in the United States since 1998. She completed her M.A. and M.Phil. from University of Calcutta, India. She has a third Master’s degree in English with Technical Writing Certification from University of Alabama in Huntsville, U.S.A. Srirupa taught as a young college lecturer in Calcutta, West Bengal and as a junior high school teacher in Columbus, Ohio. She has also worked as an interpreter in Columbus. She is a voracious reader and takes an avid delight in many forms of art. Currently, she is a writer, primarily of fiction. Her debut novel called “For A Drop Of Rice-Water” has recently been published by a traditional publishing house. Some of her short stories have been published in “The Bangalore Review”, “The Seattle Star”, “The Statesman” and “Café Dissensus.” One of her short stories has been published in “Muffled Moans Unleashed”, an anthology on child abuse and sexual violence. Some of her nonfictional works have appeared in collections of essays. One of her distinguished nonfictional articles called “Self-realization of Women through Binaries in Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire” has been published in “Reading Rabindranath: The Myriad Shades of a Genius.” Occasionally, Srirupa acts in plays in Columbus. She is part of an amateur dramatic society.
Raffaele Di Lallo
Raffaele Di Lallo has been growing houseplants for over 30 years, and it all started in grade school as a way to clean the air from his father’s smoking habit. It quickly became an obsession, and he con- tinues to grow a vast array of plants both indoors and out. In 2017, he received a phone call from a friend who suggested that he start a blog, which Raffaele promptly did the next day. There was no looking back, and his Ohio Tropics houseplant care website quickly made it to the top 10 house- plant care blogs on the internet, according to Feedspot. The blog initially provided information on how to achieve a tropical flair to gardens in cold-weather areas like Ohio. Later on, its main emphasis became houseplant care, which remains the sole focus to this day.Raffaele received his BS in chemical engineering from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, in 2000. The thinking and questioning skills he developed in his studies, combined with his passion for growing plants, have led him to become a“plant solver.” You can source Raffaele’s expertise via his virtual and in-person, houseplant consultation business where he helps people work through their house- plant challenges. Contact Raffaele directly through his Ohio Tropics website for any inquiries, or message him on Instagram (@ohiotropics). Raffaele received his Certificate of Home Horticulture from Oregon State University as a part of their Master Gardener program, completed the Green Gardener program at the Cleveland Botanical Garden, is a member of the American Orchid Society as well as Garden Communicators International, and worked part-time as a freelance writer for the popular Gardening Know How website. He also self-published a succinct but very popular guide to orchid care, Moth Orchid Mastery.
Tom Diemer
Tom Diemer teaches in the Washington program of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He covered Rhodes for more than a decade as a reporter for The Associated Press and as the Columbus bureau chief for the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Athena Dixon
Athena Dixon is a poet, essayist, and editor. Her work is included in the anthology The BreakBeat Poets Vol.2: Black Girl Magic and her craft work appears in Getting to the Truth: The Craft and Practice of Creative Nonfiction. Athena is an alumna of VONA, Callaloo, and Tin House and has received a prose fellowship from The Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Born and raised in Northeast Ohio, Athena now resides in Philadelphia.
Meredith Doench
Meredith Doench is the author of the Luce Hansen thriller series and Whereabouts Unknown. Her writing has also appeared in many literary journals. She is a board member of Mystery Writers of America, Midwest Chapter, and is a senior lecturer of creative writing, literature, and composition at the University of Dayton in Ohio. For more information about this author and to view book purchase information, visit http://www.meredithdoench.com
Anthony Doerr
Anthony Doerr was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He is the author of the story collections The Shell Collector and Memory Wall, the memoir Four Seasons in Rome, and the novels About Grace, All the Light We Cannot See, which was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and Cloud Cuckoo Land, which was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award and is currently a finalist for Novel of the Year in the British Book Awards.…
Read MoreAnthony Doerr was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He is the author of the story collections The Shell Collector and Memory Wall, the memoir Four Seasons in Rome, and the novels About Grace, All the Light We Cannot See, which was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and Cloud Cuckoo Land, which was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award and is currently a finalist for Novel of the Year in the British Book Awards.
Doerr’s short stories and essays have won five O. Henry Prizes and been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, New American Stories, The Best American Essays, The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Fiction, and many other places. His work has been translated into over forty different languages and won the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize, the Rome Prize, the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship, an Alex Award from the American Library Association, the National Magazine Award for Fiction, four Pushcart Prizes, three Pacific Northwest Book Awards, four Ohioana Book Awards, the 2010 Story Prize, which is considered the most prestigious prize in the U.S. for a collection of short stories, and the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award. All the Light We Cannot See was a #1 New York Times bestseller, remained on the New York Times Bestseller List for over 200 weeks, and is being adapted as a limited series by Netflix.
Doerr lives in Boise, Idaho with his wife and two sons. Though he is often asked, as far as he knows he is not related to the late writer Harriet Doerr. Check out his website: https://www.anthonydoerr.com/
Christina Dorr
Christina Dorr’s love affair with books began early when her mother took her to the tiny, red-brick public library in their village. This involvement has led her to become an award-winning librarian, author, presenter, and consultant. She has served on a number of state and national book award committees, including the Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, Geisel Award, and Stonewall committees. This is her fifth book, and the second one published by the American Library Association. You can visit her website at http://www.opendorrs2books.com.
Chad Dotson
Chad Dotson writes about the Reds for Cincinnati Magazine and about baseball in general for ESPN.com. He is also the founder and managing editor of Redleg Nation, a popular site devoted to baseball and the Cincinnati Reds. A longtime member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), Chad lives in Virginia with his wife, Sabrina, and two children, Reagan and Casey.
Chris Garber serves as contributing editor and featured writer for Redleg Nation, where he has written about the Reds for more than a decade. Chris lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife Katie and their three children.