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): Nonfiction
David Lee Morgan , Jr.
David Lee Morgan, Jr. has been a sports reporter for the Akron Beacon Journal since 1995. He has won several awards for his coverage of high school sports, including the James A. Sutherland Award, given to the top “rookie” reporter in Northeast Ohio and was named the Ohio Prep Sportswriters Association Writer of the Year three times (2004, 2007, 2009). He is a former high school and collegiate athlete. He played baseball and basketball at Warren G. Harding High School in Warren, Ohio and baseball at Youngstown State University.
Ruth Hanford Morhard
Ruth Hanford Morhard was memorizing the batting and earned run averages of Major League baseball players and reading baseball books when most young girls were playing with dolls. A native of Connecticut, she grew up a rabid fan of the Boston Red Sox, changing her allegiance to the Cleveland Indians when she moved to Ohio, ever hopeful of a long-awaited World Series win!
Combining her love of baseball with another passion, writing, it seems natural that she would one day write a book about baseball. MRS. MORHARD AND THE BOYS is that book—about a single mom who created the first boys’ baseball leagues in the depths of the Great Depression to help her son overcome the trauma of his early childhood. The book will be published on February 26, 2019 by Citadel Press, just in time for spring training and the start of the baseball season!
Career-wise, she’s been a senior executive with major philanthropic and arts institutions and currently serves as a consultant to national, regional and local institutions. Her work in early childhood education led to her practical nonfiction book, “Wired to Move: Facts and Strategies for Nurturing Boys in Early Childhood Settings,” published in 2013. She has a Certificate in Creative Nonfiction from Stanford University and a BA degree from Skidmore College.
She lives in Chardon, Ohio with her husband Al, son of the Mrs. Morhard of the book title.
Doug Motz
Doug Motz is the Past President of the Columbus Historical Society and continues to give tours of the core city for CHS. He is the co-author Kahiki Supper Club: A Polynesian Paradise in Columbus. He writes a “History Lesson” column for the website columbusunderground.com and gives a monthly local history quiz on the local ABC affiliate WSYX’ morning television program, Good Day Columbus. When not researching Columbus History, he spends his time singing with the Columbus Gay Men’s Chorus which he serves as Vice-President.
David Mould
David Mould, professor emeritus of media arts and studies at Ohio University, has traveled widely in Asia and southern Africa as a trainer, consultant, and researcher, and has written articles and essays for newspapers, magazines and online media. Born in the UK, he worked as a newspaper and TV journalist before moving to the US in 1978. Postcards from the Borderlands is his third book on travel, history and culture. Kirkus Reviews describes him as “A genial travel guide … an academic who does not write like an academic.”
Luma Mufleh
LUMA MUFLEH is the founder of Fugees Family, with schools now in Georgia and Ohio and an expanding footprint bringing educational equity to refugee resettlement communities across America. Her TED Talk on educational justice for refugee families was viewed more than 1.7 million times. Learn more at: https://fugeesfamily.org/about/luma-mufleh/
Brian Michael Murphy
Brian Michael Murphy is the author of We the Dead: Preserving Data at the End of the World, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2022. He is Dean of the College at Bennington College, Managing and Nonfiction Editor of Northwest Review, and Director of the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop. His essays and poems have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Lapham’s Quarterly, Kenyon Review, Media-N, Narrative, and in Italian translation in Ácoma. A Fulbright Scholar, his work has also been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Vermont Arts Council, and the Ohio Arts Council. He is a founding board member of Outpost, a residency for BIPOC writers from the U.S. and Latin America. Learn more here: https://www.brianmichaelmurphy.com/
Greg Murray
In case you couldn’t tell, Greg loves animals, especially dogs. He is a published and award winning animal photographer and advocate living in the Cleveland, Ohio area with his wife Kristen and their two rescue dogs, Leo and Kensie. Greg is best known for the “Peanut Butter Dogs” book which depicts the hilarity of dogs enjoying, you guessed it, peanut butter. He has been featured by Today, Huffington Post, Elle, People and more. Greg is dedicated to animal rescue, adoption and pit bull terrier advocacy. Born and raised in Lakewood, Ohio, Greg spent 10 yrs working in the corporate world before becoming a starting his own business in 2014 and becoming a full-time photographer focusing on animals.
Michael Neno
Columbus native Michael Neno has been writing, drawing, and publishing comic books, coloring books, zines, and minicomics for over thirty-five years. Michael has written (and also drawn) for Cracked Magazine, Caliber Comics, Ohio’s Amazing Montage Press, Silver Comics, Columbus’ Weinland Park Stories anthology, contributed to a comics anthology on Washington, D.C. history, ReDistricted, written and drawn projects for Columbus’ Wild Goose Creative, and written about Columbus history in The Columbus Scribbler.
Among the books and publications he’s published are two issues of The Signifiers, the minicomics Michael Neno’s Dream, Michael Neno’s Life-Changing Guide to Decluttering Your Comic Book Collection, What to Do When Approached by a Creepy Clown and The Toy Box. He’s also written two issues of the music review zine, Abba Zab and wrote/published a set of ten public domain mashup microcomics during the pandemic.
Along with creating graphic designs for concert posters, album covers, illustrating magazines, children’s books and freelance lettering, penciling, inking and coloring for various publishers,
he also regularly writes reviews for the website: Film Review Central.
Among the awards he has won are the Governor’s Award of Excellence in 1980 for the painting The Visit and a 2022 SPACE (Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo) Lifetime Achievement Award. He also received a Xeric Grant from Peter Laird (co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) for the publication of his comic book Reactionary Tales in 2001. The book featured an introduction written and drawn by Ohio-born cartoonist Paul Pope (Batman Year 100).
Jay Nesbit
Jay grew up in University Heights, Ohio, and has also lived in Detroit, Michigan and North Padre Island, Texas. He received a pharmacy degree from The Ohio State University, and an MBA from Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi. He is married with two adult children and two grandchildren. Jay was Clinical Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice for Northeast Ohio Medical University. An entrepreneur, he owned a pharmacy, a travel magazine, and a trophy & awards business. He has also been a real estate investor, and owns several investment homes and condominiums. Jay currently works full-time as a content creator and author, and part-time as a behavioral health pharmacist. Jay lives in Cleveland, and in St. Petersburg, Florida, during the winter months. During his leisure time, you can find Jay exploring the latest arrivals at local libraries and bookstores. He also enjoys savoring a Cleveland Orchestra concert at Severance Hall, or immersing himself in new exhibits at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Jay, alongside his wife Joyce, enjoys attending weekly summer programs at Chautauqua Institution in southwestern New York state.
Mary Newman
Mary A. Newman PhD, is the co-author of Cherry, Edible Flowers: A Global History, and Coconut: A Global History (forthcoming in 2022), with her sister, Constance Kirker. Mary has taught at Ohio University, the University of Malta, and Silpakorn University in Thailand, the latter two as a Fulbright Specialist.