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): Fiction
Mark Miesse
Mark Miesse is an up and coming author with a current focus on children’s poetry. His poetry is focused around younger children up to the tween years. The majority of his poetry is inspired by the likes of his own children and some of the goofy parenting sayings that he has most likely annoyed his children with through out the years. Mark currently lives in Medway, Ohio. He was born a buckeye and has been his only place called home.
Patricia Miller
Patricia Miller is best known for relatable characters, clever twists and turns and feel-good endings, spanning the mystery, sci- fi and romance genres. Look for her titles: Mysterious Tales of the Unexplained Vols 1-4, Love on the Lakefront and The Joshua sci-fi trilogy. Her books have received awards from Next Generation Indie Awards, American Book Fest Awards, and a Second Place Purple Dragonfly Award in the mystery category for Mysterious Tales of the Unexplained, Vol 3. She is the award-winning author of eight published books thus far: four mystery collection volumes (entertaining readers from ages 12 to well in their 80’s) all with that cozy mystery feel, a completed YA Sci Fi Sweet Romance trilogy (suitable for ages 15 and up) and she has a featured story in a romance anthology, Love on the Lakefront, with all tales set in the Great Lakes Region. Her mystery collections feature illustrations from high school and middle school art students from all over the state of Ohio which are chosen following a call for submissions. Scenes come alive with this unique collaboration between young Ohio artists and mysterious and perplexing whodunits. Patricia grew up in a small town in Ohio and has worked as a mental health clinical counselor for the past thirty-five plus years. She sits on the planning committee for the Dover Canal Town Book Festival and has given several presentations including an interactive presentation for West Virginia State Writing Winners in grades 7-9, focusing on character development. When not writing she enjoys hiking/biking weekend trips or indulging in British murder mystery marathons. Follow her at: https://www.facebook.com/patriciamillerauthor/
Jeff Miller
Jeff Miller is a middle-grade author and former camp counselor originally from Kent, Ohio. He loves snow, coffee, and visiting schools to connect with young readers. His mom, a 2018 heart transplant recipient, has always inspired him to face life with humor and heart. He is the author of The Nerdy Dozen series, middle-grade books about video games, friendship, top-secret aircrafts, positivity, and ostriches. His latest middle-grade novel, Rare Birds, is authentically inspired by his personal experience of living through his own parent’s heart transplant. Miller currently lives in Chicago, where he keeps asking his cats for writing advice. Learn more at his website: https://www.jeffmillerbooks.com/
Darin Miller
Darin Miller grew up in Rosemount, a suburb of Portsmouth, Ohio. He currently resides in Grove City. While he has worked in Information Technology for three decades, he has not solved a single, solitary crime to date. He is the BookFest award-winning author of the Ohio-based Dwayne Morrow mystery series, as well as the unrelated short story collection, Broken Bits and Bobs. With equal parts action, humor, suspense and mystery, the Dwayne Morrow series features characters you’re sure to love—and in some cases, loathe.
Robert Miltner
Robert Miltner is the author of a book of short stories and of several collections of poetry. And Your Bird Can Sing: Short Fiction, published by Bottom Dog Press in 2014, has been nominated for 2015 Ohioana Book Award in Fiction. Hotel Utopia, a 2011 collection of prose poetry, was selected by National Book Award Finalist Tim Seibles for the 2009 New Rivers Press Many Voices Poetry Prize and was subsequently a finalist for the 2012 Ohioana Book Award in Poetry. His ten chapbooks of poetry include Against the Simple (Wick award) and Eurydice Rising (Red Berry Editions award). Miltner was the recipient of a 2014 Individual Excellence in Poetry Award from the Ohio Arts Council. An associate professor of English at Kent State University at Stark, he is concurrently on the poetry and fiction faculties of, and is KSU campus coordinator for, the Northeast Ohio MFA in Creative Writing program. He edits The Raymond Carver Review and has co-edited Not Far From Here: The Paris Symposium on Raymond Carver and New Paths to Raymond Carver: Critical Essays on His Life, Fiction, and Poetry.
Dinara Mirtalipova
Dinara Mirtalipova is an award winning folk artist with big passion for folklore storytelling, modern children’s books, and classic fairytales. In her work Dinara uses bright primary color palette and embellishes her designs with bold folk floral patterns. Dinara is a traditional artist who paints by hand and prefers mediums like gouache and pencils on paper, printmaking and block printing. Currently, Dinara is an Assistant Professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art where she teaches Illustration, and also paints away from her home studio in Northeast Ohio, working on collaborations and commissions.
Tonya Mitchell
Ever since reading Jane Eyre in high school, Tonya has been drawn to dark stories, particularly of the Gothic variety. Her influences include Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, and Bram Stoker. More contemporarily, she loves the work of Shirley Jackson, Agatha Christie, Victoria Holt, Margaret Atwood, and Laura Purcell. When she landed on a story about a woman who pretended to be insane in order to write a newspaper story, she knew she’d landed on something she was meant to write. Tonya received her BA in journalism from Indiana University. Her short fiction has appeared in The Copperfield Review, Words Undone, and The Front Porch Review, as well as in various anthologies, including Furtive Dalliance, Welcome to Elsewhere, and Glimmer and Other Stories and Poems, for which she won the Cinnamon Press award in fiction. She is a self-professed Anglophile and is obsessed with all things relating to the Victorian period. She is a member of the Historical Novel Society North America and resides in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband and three wildly energetic sons.
J. P. Mitchell
J.P. Mitchell is an educator, writer, speaker and creator whose passion is to help leaders to link vision to opportunity through the power of words. She is a two-time TEDx speaker and independent publisher of Sweet Fire, an empowerment anthem for girls and women. On J.P.’s favorite things list are good music, engaging conversation, and the great outdoors. She lives in Columbus, Ohio with her husband and two children.
Dia Mixon
Dia Mixon has a passion for introducing children to new languages and cultures. As a Spanish teacher, with a Master of Education in Bilingual-Bicultural Education, she continues to seek new ways for readers to build cultural awareness and connect with the characters she creates. Dia published her debut children’s book, One Whole Me, in 2021, and promptly released her second book, When I Feel at Home, in 2022. Her upcoming project, The World That I See: Europe is inspired by her beautiful, neurodivergent child and is set to release in February 2025. She currently teaches high school Spanish in her hometown, Columbus, Ohio. Learn more at: https://www.el-mundo-mixon.com/