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): Adult
Saeed Jones
Saeed Jones was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and grew up in Lewisville, Texas. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and GQ, and he has been featured on public radio programs including NPR’s Fresh Air, Pop Culture Happy Hour, It’s Been A Minute with Sam Sanders, and All Things Considered. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, and tweets @TheFerocity. Learn more at: https://www.readsaeedjones.com/
Inez Heller Jones
From a very young age, Inez Heller Jones loved to read and write. As the youngest of eight children, many days found her reading under the large kitchen table, completely covered by the tablecloth, where she engrossed herself in faraway places while hiding from her siblings! Her avid love of reading later led her to write short stories, poems, and articles. In 2013, she self-published They Call Me Blessed! her true, inspirational journey of prayer, faith, and endurance during one of the most difficult periods of her life. In 2017, a dramatized version of this story was produced by Unshackled for radio audiences worldwide. The episodes are available for listening at Unshackled.org as a series entitled “Inez Jones, Part 1” and “Part 2.” In 2024, the book was republished with the assistance of a professional publishing company.
A central Ohio transplant from west Michigan, some of Inez’s many accomplishments included Michigan Women’s Commission Honoree for leadership in state, business, education, government, and community service; Chairwoman of the Muskegon Heights Michigan Education Assessment Program Task Force; Muskegon County Museum Trustee; Legislative Committee Chair of the Muskegon County Black Women’s Political Caucus; and three time candidate for the Ninety-Second District state house seat. In They Call Me Blessed! Inez is introduced to readers as wife, empty nester, single mom, and in-home caregiver.
https://www.christianfaithpublishing.com/books/?book=they-call-me-blessed
E.M. Jones
E. M. Jones grew up in the rustic Ohio countryside. When he’s not working on his next book, he’s with his family, or busy exploring every local bookstore and library. If there is a creepy basement full of books, he will find it and spend too much time there. His short fiction has appeared in Mock Turtle Zine. The Darling Killer is his first novel.
Mark Sebastian Jordan
Based in the central highlands of Ohio, Mark Sebastian Jordan is published internationally as a music critic, is a specialist in the history of murder and mayhem in rural Ohio, and is known far and wide as a poet, storyteller, and humorist. His books include The Ceely Rose Murders at Malabar Farm (2021), The Witch of Mansfield (2023), Slammer: Private Dick (2017), Murder Ballads: American Crime Poems (2014), and The Book of Jobs (2010). He has contributed to such notable anthologies as I Heard a Cardinal Sing: Ohio’s Appalachian Poets (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions), Eclipsing the Dark (Ohio Poetry Association), Gas Station Famous (OAC Books/Spartan Press), and Buzzkill Apocalypse (Night Ballet Press).
Robin Judd
The child and grandchild of Holocaust survivors, Robin Judd is associate professor of history at The Ohio State University, where she directs the Hoffman Leaders and Leadership in History Fellowship program. At OSU, Robin teaches courses in the History of the Holocaust, Jewish History, and history of leadership. She serves as the President of the Association for Jewish Studies, the largest international learned society and professional organization representing Jewish studies, and is also the Vice Chair of the Leo Baeck Institute’s Advisory Board. In recognition of her work in Holocaust studies, Governor Mike DeWine appointed Robin to Ohio’s Holocaust and Genocide Memorial and Education Commission in 2021. https://history.osu.edu/people/judd.18
Cindy Juyoung Ok
Cindy Juyoung Ok is the author of Ward Toward, which won the Yale Younger Poets Prize. She is a former high school science teacher and current Kenyon Review fellow teaching poetry at Kenyon College. A MacDowell fellow, Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Award finalist, and Phyllis Smart-Young Poetry Prize winner, she also edits and translates poetry.
Jay B. Kalagayan
Jay B. Kalagayan (MeSseD creator, writer and publisher) has been an annoyingly consistent entrepreneur and arts advocate in Cincinnati for more than twenty years. A Xavier University graduate from Erie, PA, Jay is founder of Know Theatre of Cincinnati and a co-founder of the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. He is a writer of plays, cartoon strips, reviews, articles, marketing collateral, fundraising appeals, and geeky event calendars. His major influences are his wife Jan and daughters Meggie and Fi.
MeSseD is the nickname of the Metropolitan Sewer District and features sewer worker Lilliput. She is our tour guide to the weird, wild and wet world beneath our feet.
Creating a comic book like MeSseD has been a lifelong dream. With two seasons published, featuring artwork from friend and collaborator Dylan Speeg, Jay tours the country promoting MeSseD. He just finished his People’s Liberty project, the MeSseD Tunnel Tour, an immersive comic book experience taking place three stories underground.
Yalie Saweda Kamara
Yalie Saweda Kamara, Ph.D. is a Sierra Leonean American writer, educator, and researcher from Oakland, California. She is the 2022-2025 Cincinnati and Mercantile Library Poet Laureate and a 2023 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. Kamara is the author of the poetry collection Besaydoo (Milkweed Editions, 2024), which was noted in The New York Times, The Rumpus, and Poets & Writers. Kamara earned a PhD in Creative Writing and English Literature from the University of Cincinnati. She is an assistant professor of English at Xavier University. For more, please visit: http://www.yaylala.com
Kenn Kaufman
Kenn Kaufman burst onto the birding scene as a teenager in the 1970s, hitch-hiking all over North America in pursuit of birds, an adventure later chronicled in his cult-classic book Kingbird Highway. After several years as a professional tour leader, taking groups to all seven continents, he transitioned to a career as a writer, editor, and illustrator. Most of his energy currently goes into book projects and painting bird portraits. He has written a dozen books, including seven titles in his own series, Kaufman Field Guides. His other books include Lives of North American Birds and Flights Against the Sunset. The latest is A Season on the Wind: Inside the world of spring migration, published in 2019. Kenn is a field editor for Audubon, a Fellow of the American Ornithological Society, and the only person to have received the American Birding Association’s lifetime achievement award twice.
Shawnie Kelley
Shawnie Kelley has lived in Columbus since 1997 and calls Upper Arlington home since 2002. She studied Art History at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, The Ohio State University, and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Shawnie is the author of the all three editions of the Insiders’ Guide® to Columbus, several books about Cape Cod, and has contributed food and travel-related articles to both national and international magazines, including Edible Columbus and Sophisticated Living. She owns Wanderlust Tours, a cultural and culinary travel company, and teaches cooking classes for The Mix at Columbus State. Some of her best times are just exploring the world, sniffing out regional food, writing about spas, afternoon tea and golf, and adventuring with her fun little family: Dan, Madalyn, and Gabe. She hopes the Insiders’ Guide will expose Columbus as the international capital city it is becoming!