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
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Aimee Nezhukumatathil (neh-ZOO / KOO-mah / tah-TILL) is the author of the New York Times best-selling illustrated collection of nature essays and Kirkus Prize finalist, WORLD OF WONDERS: IN PRAISE OF FIREFLIES, WHALE SHARKS, & OTHER ASTONISHMENTS (2020, Milkweed Editions), which was chosen as Barnes and Noble’s Book of the Year. She has four previous poetry collections: OCEANIC (Copper Canyon Press, 2018), LUCKY FISH (2011), AT THE DRIVE-IN VOLCANO (2007), and MIRACLE FRUIT (2003), the last three from Tupelo Press. Her most recent chapbook is LACE & PYRITE, a collaboration of epistolary garden poems with the poet Ross Gay. Her writing appears twice in the Best American Poetry Series, The New York Times Magazine, ESPN, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, and Tin House.
Honors include a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pushcart Prize, a Mississippi Arts Council grant, and being named a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. In 2021, she became the first-ever poetry editor for SIERRA magazine, the story-telling arm of The Sierra Club. She is professor of English and Creative Writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.
Melica Niccole
Melica Niccole is a native resident of Columbus, Ohio where she is an mother, author, poet, and Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor. Growing up on the Southeast Side of Columbus, she attended schools such as: Livingston Elementary, Barrett Middle, and Briggs High Schools. She also lived in New Jersey for approximately five years, where she co-founded an annual Children’s Book Festival in Camden, New Jersey, collected over 250 children’s books for book drives, collected book bags for a New York elementary school, and participated in local events.
She developed a fondness of writing and creating things at an early age. Writing was a creative expressive technique that she used to talk about various subject matters, such as relationships, domestic violence, friendships, and more. These subjects were mainly expressed in the form poetry.
After graduating from college, Melica sought to be a published author. Although she did not become a published author right after her undergraduate work at Otterbein University, the drive and determination within her stayed the same. She has performed in front of audiences at The National Black Book Festival, Inspired Word NYC, The Ohio State University, Newark Public Library (New Jersey), Laughin & Loungin, Writing Wrongs Poetry open mic events, and other places around the country. Her hard work finally paid off in August of 2010 when she released her first book titled, Dead Wrong. She has written 22 books/Kindle Vellas with 2 Children’s Books in development.
Melica has a Master’s Degree in Science Administration with a concentration in Health Services and a certificate in Human Resources from Central Michigan University. Her Bachelor’s of Arts Degree is in Health Promotion and Fitness from Otterbein University. In 2012, she was deemed the first alumni to receive the Author of the Month distinction at Otterbein. She was then awarded the Diversity (2018) and Leadership and Citizenship Awards (2019) from Otterbein as well, due to her work with planning and creating programming and collecting literacy items for disadvantaged populations. In 2022, Melica participated in Otterbein’s first African-American Read-In Program, which was an initiative developed by the National Council of Teachers of English. The initiative allows various schools and organizations to create similar programs based on their resources.
Melica loves living outside the box and creating new and exciting things. She believes that anything is possible with passion and determination. She has worked with individuals with Developmental Disabilities, Mental Health Diagnosis, At-risk youth, children, and various populations for about 15 years.
Michael Nye
Michael Nye is the author of the story collection STRATEGIES AGAINST EXTINCTION (Queen’s Ferry Press, 2012) and the novel ALL THE CASTLES BURNED, forthcoming from Turner Publishing in February 2018.
He was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. He attended the Ohio State University, where he graduated with a BA in English Literature, and the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where he earned his MFA in creative writing.
His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in American Literary Review, Boulevard, Cincinnati Review, Crab Orchard Review, Epoch, Kenyon Review, New South, Normal School, Sou’wester, and South Dakota Review, among many others. His work has been a finalist for the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in fiction and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He lives with his wife in Columbus, Ohio.
Phillip J Obermiller
Phillip J. Obermiller is a senior visiting scholar in the School of Planning at the University of Cincinnati and a fellow at the University of Kentucky Appalachian Center. He is the author of numerous books on Appalachia and both black and white Appalachians.
Joe Oestreich
Joe Oestreich is the author of the memoir Hitless Wonder: A Life in Minor League Rock and Roll. A graduate of the Ohio State University MFA Program in Creative Writing, his work has appeared in Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Ninth Letter, Fourth Genre, and elsewhere. He has been awarded a fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, honored by The Atlantic Monthly, and shortlisted in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007, The Best American Essays 2008 and 2009, and The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses 2010. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, SC, where he co-edits Waccamaw.
Michael Olin-Hitt
Michael Olin-Hitt is a Professor of English at the University of Mount Union in Alliance, Ohio, where he teaches creative writing, American literature, and Native American literature. In addition to the novel The Homegoing, he has published nine short stories in various literary journals, such as The Nebraska Review, The Notre Dame Review, The Other Side, and Puerto Del Sol. He has also published two works of nonfiction on spirituality: The Word of God Upon My Lips and A Fish Made of Water. He was born in Dayton, and has lived in Ohio his entire life. Currently, he lives in Uniontown with his wife and two children.
Bill Osinski
Bill Osinski was a newspaper reporter for 36 years and first covered the Logan murder case for the Akron Beacon Journal. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, he now writes books and screenplays, two of which have been optioned for motion picture projects. He lives with his wife Eileen near Atlanta, Georgia.
Amanda Page
Amanda Page is a writer living in Columbus, Ohio.
Celeste Parsons
Celeste Parsons lives outside of Nelsonville in a log house built on a former dairy farm, with her husband
Jim, her Westie dog Spook, and a revolving population of deer, turkeys, chipmunks, hummingbirds, and
other wildlife. She enjoys gardening, anything having to do with fabric or thread, reading, and bicycle
touring with Jim on their tandem bike (64,000 miles since the year 2000, and counting). She is also an
enthusiastic member of the ABC Players and thinks of Stuart’s Opera House as her second home. She
has written poems, plays, technical documentation, and newspaper articles since childhood. This is her
first published book.