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.
Jill Grunenwald
Jill Grunenwald has her BFA from Bowling Green State University and her MLIS from the University of Kentucky. She is the author of two memoirs: Running with a Police Escort: Tales from the Back of the Pack(Skyhorse, 2017) and Reading Behind Bars: A Memoir of Literature, Law, and Life as a Prison Librarian (Skyhorse, 2019). Currently, she is employed as a marketing & communications specialist at OverDrive, the leading ebook and audiobook app for libraries, where she is also the creator and co-host of the Professional Book Nerds podcast.
D. M. Guay
D. M. Guay is a big geek, huge horror fan, and loves stand-up comedy. She mish-mashes her love of all that’s scary/gory/geeky/funny into stories about creeps and critters, ghouls and ghosts, and all of the unseemly things that go bump in the night. D. M. lives in Ohio. She loves Godzilla, tiki bars, liquid eyeliner, 24-hour horror movie festivals, and most of all, people who make art, despite adversity, no matter what life throws at them. She is a stage 4 kidney cancer survivor and donates some of her book profits to the Kidney Cancer Research Alliance. She also runs “Monsters In Your Inbox” a monthly round-up of B-horror movies, horror comedy books, and weird news. Learn more about her at DMGuay.com.
Jeff Gundy
Jeff Gundy, long-time professor of English at Bluffton University, has published many books of poems and prose, including Abandoned Homeland, Somewhere Near Defiance, Songs from an Empty Cage: Poetry, Mystery, Anabaptism, and Peace, and Spoken Among the Trees. His earlier Bottom Dog books include Rhapsody with Dark Matter and Inquiries. A 2008 Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Salzburg, he taught at LCC International University in Klaipeda, Lithuania in spring 2015. He plays 6- and 12-string guitar, and puts in as many miles as possible on his road bike and, with his wife Marlyce, on their Cannondale tandem.
His poems and essays have appeared in Georgia Review, The Sun, Image, Kenyon Review, Christian Century, Mennonite Quarterly Review, Conrad Grebel Review, Nimrod, and many other magazines. Other honors and awards include multiple Ohio Arts Council fellowships, two C. Henry Smith Peace Lectureships, Bechtel and Yoder Lectureships, a Nancy Dasher Award, a Society of Midland Authors Poetry Award, and the 2015 Simons Lectures at Bethel (KS) College. He was named the Ohio Poet of the Year by the Ohio Poetry Day Society for Somewhere Near Defiance.
Kari Gunter-Seymour
As Poet Laureate of Ohio, Kari Gunter-Seymour focuses on lifting up underrepresented voices throughout Appalachia, including incarcerated teens and adults and women in recovery. Her poetry collections include Dirt Songs (EastOver Press 2024); Alone in the House of My Heart (Ohio University Swallow Press, 2022), finalist for the NIEA award; and A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen (Sheila Na Gig Editions, 2020), winner of the 2020 Ohio Poet of the Year Award. A ninth generation Appalachian, she is the editor of I Thought I Heard A Cardinal Sing: Ohio’s Appalachian Voices, which received the 2023 “Book of the Year Award” from the American Book Fest and funded by the Academy of American Poets and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and the Women of Appalachia Project’s anthology series, Women Speak.
Gunter-Seymour is a retired instructor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University; the host of Spoken & Heard, a seasonal performance series featuring poets, writers, and musicians from across the country; a Pillars of Prosperity Fellow for the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio and an artist in residence for the Writing the Land project. Her work has been featured on Verse Daily, World Literature Today, The New York Times, and Poem-a-Day. Find her online at http://www.karigunterseymourpoet.com, or on Instagram and Threads @karigunterseymour.
Ted Gup
Ted Gup is the author of the bestseller The Book of Honor, winner of the Investigative Reporters and Editors Book-of-the-Year Award, and Nation of Secrets, winner of the Shorenstein Book Prize. He is Professor and Chair of the Journalism Department at Emerson College. A former investigative reporter for The Washington Post, where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and Time magazine, he has taught at Case Western Reserve University, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing as a Fulbright Scholar. He has written for publications such as the Smithsonian, National Geographic, The New York Times, Boston Globe, Village Voice, Sports Illustrated, Slate, GQ, Mother Jones, Audubon, Columbia Journalism Review, NPR, and Newsweek. Visit Ted’s website: http://www.asecretgiftbook.com/.
Sandra Gurvis
Sandra Gurvis (http://www.sandragurvis.com) is the author of 18 commercially published books and hundreds of magazine and web articles. Her titles include DAY TRIPS FROM COLUMBUS, 3rd ed.; OHIO CURIOSITIES, 2nd ed.; CAREERS FOR NONCONFORMISTS, which was a selection of the Quality Paperback Book Club; and more. Along having her books featured on radio, television and in newspapers and magazines, PARIS HILTON: A BIOGRAPHY was translated into Chinese and her second novel, COUNTRY CLUB WIVES was optioned as a television series by Insight Productions out of Toronto, Canada.
Recent titles include 111 PLACES IN COLUMBUS THAT YOU MUST NOT MISS, MYTHS AND MYSTERIES OF OHIO and a re-issuing of her first novel, THE PIPE DREAMERS. Her most current project, THREE RINGLING CIRCUS: THE HISTORY OF SARASOTA, FLORIDA AND THE FAMOUS RINGLING BROTHERS is forthcoming from Pineapple/Rowman in early 2024. She is currently at work on DOING HARD TIME IN SENIORVILLE, the first of a series of satire/mysteries set in The Villages of Florida.
A freelance writer for over 30 years, Sandra has written corporate profiles and technical articles for clients such as Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Ohio Health, Merrill Lynch, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and the Association of American Medical Colleges and publications such as Selling Power, Creativity, ASRT Scanner, Optical Technology, B’nai B’rith magazine, Currents and AAA Today. Additionally, she has created Web content for Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, Palm Beach Media, worth.com and many others. Along with rewriting and editing books on medical and business topics, she prepares newsletters and assists in the writing and publication of magazines and web content covering a variety of healthcare and business issues.
A major aspect of her work has been on the Vietnam protests and their aftereffects. Her nonfiction title, WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWER CHILDREN GONE? delves into all facets of the Vietnam era, from tracking the student protest and conservative movements to comparing the controversy surrounding Vietnam and the Middle East. Her novel, THE PIPE DREAMERS is a fictional exploration of the late ’60s/early 70s, mostly set in the small college town of Hampton, Ohio.
She has also written on this topic for the Ohio State Alumni Magazine, People and many other publications. Other bylines and credits include People, YM, Entertainment Weekly, Fiction Writer, Woman’s World, Parenting, The World and I, Coast to Coast, USA Weekend, Chicago Tribune, as well as travel articles, promotional materials and advertorials. Along with being selected for residencies and fellowships at the Mary Anderson Center in Mt. St. Francis, Indiana; the Vermont Writers Studio in Johnston; and receiving grants from the National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) and the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas as well as certification from the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) Sandra is a longtime member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA). She lectures frequently on writing and her books and lives in Bradenton, Florida.
Susan Guy
Susan M. Guy was born and raised in Jefferson County, Ohio. Following in the footsteps of her father, a retired Wintersville police captain, Susan served as the first female police officer on the Cross Creek Township Police Department for fifteen years, acheiveing the rank of sergeant. Since 1994, she has been employed by the State of Ohio as a correctional officer.
She is a member of the Fort Steuben Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and is the public relations director for the Tri State Writers Society. She credits the Tri State Writers Society and its president, author Karina Garrison, for asking her to write a short story on prostitution in Steubenville. The story took on a life of its own, as the urge to dig for more information took over. The result is this book, Mobsters, Madams & Murder in Steubenville, Ohio (The Story of Little Chicago).
Margaret Peterson Haddix
Margaret Peterson Haddix is the New York Times-bestselling author of 50 books for kids and teens, including the Shadow Children series, the Missing series, and the Greystone Secrets series. Her newest book, The Ghostly Photos, is the second in a new series, Mysteries of Trash and Treasure. Her books have been published in more than 20 countries and honored with the International Reading Association’s Children’s Book Award and numerous state reader’s choice awards, including the Buckeye Book Award. Haddix grew up on a farm near Washington Court House, Ohio, and graduated from Miami University with degrees in English/journalism, English/creative writing, and history. Before her first book was published in 1995, she worked as a newspaper copy editor in Fort Wayne, Indiana; a newspaper reporter in Indianapolis; and a community college instructor and freelance writer in Danville, Illinois. She and her husband, Doug, now live in Columbus, Ohio. They are the parents of two grown children.
Ann Hagedorn
Ann Hagedorn has written for the Wall Street Journal and New York Daily News and is the author of five critically acclaimed books, including the Ohioana Award-winning Beyond the River and Savage Peace, Her latest book is The Invisible Soldiers: How America Outsourced Our Security.…
Read MoreAnn Hagedorn has written for the Wall Street Journal and New York Daily News and is the author of five critically acclaimed books, including the Ohioana Award-winning Beyond the River and Savage Peace, Her latest book is The Invisible Soldiers: How America Outsourced Our Security. (Photo by Jeanie Wulfkuhle)
Krysten Lindsay Hager
Who knew all those embarrassing, cringe-y moments in middle school and high school could turn into a career? And who would have thought that daydreaming in math class would pay off down the road? Krysten Lindsay Hager writes about friendship, self-esteem, fitting in, frenemies, crushes, fame, first loves, and values. Her work includes YA contemporary, middle grade fiction, and adult and young adult rom-coms. She is the author of True Colors, Best Friends…Forever?, Next Door to a Star, Landry in Like, and Competing with the Star (The Star Series: Book 2), Dating the It Guy, Can Dreams Come True, and In Over Her Head: Lights, Camera, Anxiety. Krysten’s work has been featured in USA Today, The Flint Journal, the Grand Haven Tribune, the Beavercreek Current, the Bellbrook Times, Springfield News-Sun, Grand Blanc View, Dayton Daily News and on Living Dayton. She received her BA in English and master’s degree in liberal studies from the University of Michigan-Flint.