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.
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Marilyn Greenwald
Marilyn Greenwald is a professor emerita of Journalism at Ohio University, where she taught courses in news reporting, biography writing and the writing of reviews and criticism. She also worked for ten years as a news reporter and business writer at daily newspapers in Ohio. She is the author of four biographies, including A Woman of the Times: Journalism, Feminism and the Career of Charlotte Curtis, (1999).
Robert Greer
Robert Greer is author of the CJ Floyd mystery series and medical thrillers. He has also published a short story collection, Isolation and
Other Stories. His book, a literary novel entitled SPOON, won The Colorado Book Award in Literary Fiction and The Rocky Mountain Farmers Union Media of the Year Award and won a gold medal for Best Regional Fiction/West-Mountain from the Independent Book Publishers Association, and was a finalist for both the SPUR Award for Best Western Short Novel and the High Plains Best Fiction Book
Award. Greer lives in Denver, where he is a practicing surgical pathologist, research scientist, and Professor of Medicine, Pathology, and Surgery at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. Greer’s award winning short stories have appeared in numerous national literary magazines and two short story anthologies showcasing western fiction. He is founding editor of the nationally acclaimed High Plains Literary Review. In 1983 a Greer-led research group was the first in the world to report a link between smokeless tobacco use, oral infection with the human papillomavirus and cancer of the oral cavity. In addition to writing, medicine, and his molecular biological research, Greer reviews books for Denver National Public Radio affiliate, KUVO, and he owns a cattle ranch in the Laramie River Valley in Wyoming. More of Robert may be found on his website: http://www.robertgreerbooks.com/.
Maria Gregory
Maria Gregory is a thoughtful guide and quiet force behind The Lion You Don’t See, a deeply moving work born from her desire to reach young readers navigating today’s silent battles—anxiety, self-doubt, and feeling unseen. As a mentor and encourager at heart, Maria was stirred to write this book to help others, especially the next generation, recognize that the strength they long for is already within them. Through gentle storytelling and powerful imagery, she invites every reader to uncover the courage they may not even realize they carry.
Born with a heart for teaching and mentoring, Maria has spent decades uplifting others through service and innovation. She served as a volunteer Big Sister with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America for over ten years, and to this day, continues to mentor her “little sisters,” who are now raising families of their own. Her commitment to empowering young minds also led her to
serve as a judge for the Invention Convention League in 2012, 2013, 2014, and again in 2018—and she’s honored to return for the 2025 season.
Maria is the creator of iRiseUp.AI, a platform designed to make AI more human-centered, accessible, and purposeful. Built for dreamers and underdogs, iRiseUp.AI is rooted in the belief that technology should lift people up—not leave them behind.
Whether in her writing, her mentorship, or her quiet innovation, Maria’s mission is simple but powerful: to help others rise, with grace, hope, and the kind of courage that often goes unseen.
She is a proud Presidential Member of the American Association of Christian Counselors, offering wisdom and counsel that is both practical and faith-filled.
While her résumé spans counseling, education, and tech innovation, Maria wears her titles lightly. To those who know her, she’s simply a devoted wife, stepmom, aunt, godmother, and faithful friend.
Whether she’s guiding a mentee, supporting her community, or sharing a quiet moment with family, Maria leads with empathy and intention.
The Lion You Don’t See is more than a book—it’s Maria’s invitation to readers of all ages to recognize the quiet power within. Whether in her writing, her mentorship, or her quiet innovation, Maria’s mission is simple but powerful: to help others rise, with grace, hope, and the kind of courage that often goes unseen.
Learn more at: https://www.thelionyoudontsee.com/
Michael Griffith
Michael Griffith’s most recent novel, Trophy (Northwestern University Press/TriQuarterly), was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best 25 Books of Fiction for 2011. His previous books, both from Arcade, are the novel Spikes and the story collection Bibliophilia. Griffith is Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati.
Megan E. Griffiths
Megan E. Griffiths is an adjunct professor in the department of Biological Science at Kent State University. Over the past two decades, Dr. Griffiths has studied plant-plant interactions with particular focus on understanding the mechanisms by which disturbance and competition impact plant communities.
Mary Grimm
Mary Grimm has had three books published, Left to Themselves, Transubstantiation, and Stealing Time. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Antioch Review, and The Mississippi Review, as well as in a number of journals that publish flash fiction, including Helen, The Citron Review, and Tiferet. Currently, she is working on a series of climate change novellas set in past and future Cleveland.
W.H. Chip Gross
Freelance writer, photographer, speaker, and editor Chip Gross has been fascinated by the out-of-doors all his life. At an early age, Gross was taught to fish by his grandfather and as a young teenager learned to hunt from his father. Gross attended Ohio State University, majoring in Wildlife Management. In 1976, Gross was hired by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife, as a State Wildlife Officer.…
Read MoreFreelance writer, photographer, speaker, and editor Chip Gross has been fascinated by the out-of-doors all his life. At an early age, Gross was taught to fish by his grandfather and as a young teenager learned to hunt from his father. Gross attended Ohio State University, majoring in Wildlife Management. In 1976, Gross was hired by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife, as a State Wildlife Officer. He has also written four books: Home, At Last, Is The Hunter, a fiction novel; Pro Tactics: Steelhead & Salmon; Ohio Wildlife Viewing Guide; and Young Beginner’s Guide to Shooting & Archery. A member of Outdoor Writers of Ohio and the Outdoor Writers Association of America, Gross has been tired from the Ohio DNR since 2002.
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.