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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Jeannine de Nobel Love
Jeannine deNobel Love is an independent art historian focusing on American art and architecture from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. She hold an undergraduate degree from Western Reserve University, a M.A. in Art History from Oberlin College, and a certificate from the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. She has worked at the Detroit Institute of Art’s department of twentieth century art, and served as Director of the Intermuseum Conservation Association, a regional art conservation center located in Ohio. She has published on the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and his collaborators, patronage and public art, John LaFarge’s stained glass, and contributed to The John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art: Guide to the Collections.
Victoria Lowery
Her teachers said, “Vivid imagination”, “Creative”, “Excellent writing”. But before becoming a best-selling author, Victoria Lowery has been a tennis player on the men’s team in college, a live talk show host, Make-A-Wish Ambassador, and ran a shelter for injured animals out of her home. Curiously, it was Victoria’s work as CEO of a state nonprofit that showed her it was time to return to her first love and write. During board meetings her mind filled with thoughts like: “Why don’t others see his real agenda.” “What makes that person’s opinion more easily accepted?” “Why isn’t she expressing her ideas?” Victoria boiled the answer to each of these questions down to one very powerful word – emotions. Whether it be fear of rejection or plans for revenge, emotion can unknowingly drive the course of business, the country, the universe, of our destiny. While Star Trek brings us new worlds to explore in space, Victoria believes our own inner space will prove to be the true final frontier. Following a never-ending urge to help others harness the strength of their emotion, Victoria threw caution into the wind and left her business management career. You can connect with Victoria and find her publications at VictoriaLowery.com
Dave Lucas
As a native Ohioan, born in Cleveland, Dave Lucas earned his B.A. (English) at John Carroll University, M.F.A. (Creative Writing) at the University of Virginia, and M.A. and Ph.D. (English Language and Literature) at the University of Michigan. He has been an instructor at Case Western Reserve University; the Cleveland Clinic Program in Medical Humanities, Lerner College of Medicine; the John Carroll Young Writers Workshop; and Sweet Briar/James Madison University.
His achievements have included: The Reva and David Logan Foundation, For Your Gift grant award; the Cleveland Arts Prize, Emerging Artist in Literature; and a Creative Workforce Fellowship from the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture in Greater Cleveland. His work, Weather, was awarded the 2012 Ohioana Book Award in Poetry. His poems are anthologized in The Bedford Introduction to Literature and Best New Poets 2005, among other publications.
During his time as poet laureate, Lucas said he wants to help Ohioans use poetry to understand and enhance their lives. He is planning a multimedia project involving people from diverse places and backgrounds allowing them to experience a variety of opinions about poetry.
Anne Marie Lutz
Anne Marie Lutz is the author of three fantasy novels. Her Color Mage novels were re-issued as Black Tide and Sword of Jashan in 2019. Her newest novel, Taylenor, was released in July 2019. She has also written several short stories, appearing most recently in Bards and Sages Quarterly. Anne Marie grew up in the Youngstown area, but has lived in central Ohio for many years. She graduated from the Ohio State University twice, with degrees in Journalism and Business, but she has always wanted to write fiction.
Nannette V. Maciejunes
Nannette V. Maciejunes has served as Executive Director of the Columbus Museum of Art since November 2003. Prior to that, Nannette began at the Museum as a curatorial research assistant in 1984, with a brief absence while she served as Curator of Collections and Exhibitions (1989-1990) at The Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis. In 1980-1981, she was Director of Denison University’s Gallery. She is a graduate of both Stanford’s Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders and the Getty’s Leadership Institute for Museum Management (MMI). She has been active as a community leader, serving on numerous boards, including a five-year tenure on the Columbus Art Commission. She has been a member of the Denison University Research Foundation Board since 2003. In 2006, Nannette received the Ohio Governor’s Award for the Arts in the category of Arts Administration and the South Side Settlement House Spirit of Volunteerism Award. In 2009, Nannette was named a YWCA Woman of Achievement. Nannette was named a 2015 Columbus Business First C-Suite Award Honoree.
Under Nannette’s leadership, the Museum adopted and implemented the mission to create great experiences with great art for everyone. She was instrumental in CMA’s acquisition of The Photo League collection and the Philip J. and Suzanne Schiller Collection of American Social Commentary Art, 1930-1970, which is considered to be the most important collection of its kind. In 2011, CMA opened the Center for Creativity, an innovative new space which demonstrates the Museum’s leadership in the field of the visitor-centered museum experience and commitment to creativity. In 2013, the Museum was awarded the Institute of Library and Museum Services’ National Medal, the Nation’s highest honor for museums. Nannette spearheaded the largest and most successful endowment and capital campaign in CMA’s history. In October 2015, the Museum completed its major renovation and expansion, which included the renovation of the historic 1931 building and the addition of a new 50,000 sq. ft. wing and sculpture garden. The Margaret M. Walter Wing was named one of Wall Street Journal’s Architecture Picks of 2015. The Walter Wing was also recognized with the 2016 James B. Recchie Design Award, the 2016 AIA Columbus Architecture Honor Award, and the 2017 AIA Ohio 2017 Design Merit Award. Due to tremendous impact that the Walter Wing has made on the community, the Columbus Museum of Art was awarded the 2016 GCAC Columbus Makes Art Excellence Award, the 2016 Columbus Foundation Award, the 2016 James B. Recchie Design Award, the 2016 AIA Columbus Architecture Honor Award, the 2017 AIA Ohio Award, and the 2017 Design Merit Award.
Dandi Daley Mackall
Dandi won her first writing contest as a 10-year-old tomboy. Her 50 words on “Why I Want to Be Batboy for the Kansas City A’s” won first place, but the team wouldn’t let a girl be batboy. It was her first taste of rejection. Since then, Dandi has become an award-winning author of about 500 books for all ages (from infant to adult) and in every genre. The Silence of Murder (Knopf/Random House) won the Edgar Award for Best YA and ALA-YALSA Best Fiction. Legend of Ohio and Rudy Rides the Rails: A Depression Era Story won Notable Book awards, a Children’s Book Council award, the Angel Award, the “Award of Excellence” from Chicago Book Show. A Girl Named Dan (her own “batboy” story, and a lesson on Title IX) won a Mom’s Choice & the Amelia Bloom. My Boyfriends’ Dogs (now a Hallmark movie, “most watched” 2014), gained her national attention. With Love, Wherever You Are, Dandi’s grown-up novel about her parents, Army Dr. and Nurse in WW2, won the Reader’s Choice Award and earned PW and Booklist starred reviews. Other awards: the Helen Keating Ott Award for Contributions to Children’s Literature; OCIRA Hall of Fame; ALA Best Book; Top Teen Read by New York Public Library; Romantic Times’ Top Pick; Gold Medallions, Christian Book Awards, etc. Dandi is a national speaker, keynoting at conferences and Young Author events, enjoying school visits, and making appearances on TV (ABC, NBC, and CBS). Dandi writes from rural Ohio, where she lives with her family, including horses, dogs, cats, and an occasional squirrel, deer, or raccoon.
KaraLynne Mackrory
Award winning author KaraLynne Mackrory is no newbie to the writing world. She made her debut as an author at the tender age of thirteen when she wrote her first set of bad poems. Angsty, emotional, and filled with teenage drama, they were unbelievable disasters. Such contributions to the literary world were so terrible that today they are kept behind lock and key to protect others from their awfulness. As a young adult she steered clear of soap opera-inspired works and achieved a degree in social work. It was not until her late twenties that she returned to her roots in writing. Since then she has published four Jane Austen-inspired novels so full of romantic sensibilities as to give you a toothache and a grin and hopefully a few contented sighs. Her book Haunting Mr. Darcy won a 2015 IPPY Bronze Medal in the category of Romance. Visit her online at karalynnemackrory.merytonpress.com.
Daniel Mainzer
I am 78 years of age and have been a photographer since I was 12. In the meantime, I collected a Political Science degree from Muskingum University in 1968 and worked at various jobs till 1976 when Firestone employed me as a photographer. After four years and some months, I stepped off the deck of that sinking ship into a photographers job at Stouffer's foods.…
Read MoreI am 78 years of age and have been a photographer since I was 12. In the meantime, I collected a Political Science degree from Muskingum University in 1968 and worked at various jobs till 1976 when Firestone employed me as a photographer. After four years and some months, I stepped off the deck of that sinking ship into a photographers job at Stouffer’s foods. That lasted almost three years, and next I became a photographer at General Tire, which transformed itself into GenCorp, a new corporate structure. This turned out to be important because they urged me to start my own studio after 4+ years by letting me and 300 others go after a takeover bid. That was 1987, and I hit the ground running, freelancing for GenCorp and adding many clients to date.
An unexpected benefit from the 10 years in the rubber industry was a large body of work documenting the life of the workers and the destruction of the factories. Being a self-taught and photographer, I felt compelled to do this and felt I was operating in the same vein as Lewis Hine, Paul Strand and others who documented the world around them. At least there is a record of the factory work and the people who did it. Some of this photography has been published (1998) in a book ‘Wheels of Fortune’, a history of the rubber industry in Akron published by the Akron university Press. It is my hope that this body of work will be recognized and find a permanent home so people will remember their legacy.
Most of my work is commercial: studio product shots, location events, industrial, advertising and auto racing photography. The racing photography started when General Tire began a motorsports program in 1984, and is now a third of our current business. A branch of the business is panoramic stadium shots for professional and collegiate football and baseball. This started when my wife took a print of the Indians baseball stadium, Jacobs Field, to work and came home with 50+ print orders. I was the official photographer for the All American Soap Box Derby from 1980-2012.
Throughout my career I have always photographed landscapes, flowers, and the world in general. Being a self- taught photographer has allowed me to enjoy it as an avocation, in addition to my vocation; something I will always do. From 1969 to 1976, I assigned myself to make a finished b/w print a day and with few exceptions stuck to this routine until accepting my position at Firestone.
Landscapes have always been a relaxation to me even though they demand scouting, great light, technique, and patience. My commercial clients purchased the few landscapes that we displayed in the studio, and thus the move into gallery sales, shows and some contests.
I would like to have viewers feel as if they were standing next to me as i first see and photograph a scene. It is like we experience the impact of what we are seeing together. This is not about me in any way, but what i want to share with the viewer in terms of emotion, the beauty of the world we live in and whatever we feel viewing what i have done.
Amit Majmudar
AMIT MAJMUDAR is a poet, novelist, essayist, translator, and the former first Poet Laureate of Ohio. He works as a diagnostic and nuclear radiologist and lives in Westerville, Ohio, with his wife and three children. He is the author of seventeen books so far in a variety of categories, with different bodies of work published in the United States and in India.
POETRY: His poetry collections include 0’, 0’ (Northwestern, 2009), shortlisted for the Norma Faber First Book Award; and Heaven and Earth (2011, Storyline Press), which won the Donald Justice Prize. These volumes were followed by Dothead (Knopf, 2016) and What He Did in Solitary (Knopf, 2020). His poems have won the Pushcart Prize and have appeared in the Norton Introduction to Literature, The New Yorker, and numerous Best American Poetry anthologies as well as journals and magazines across the United States, UK, India, and Australia. Majmudar also edited, at Knopf’s invitation, a political poetry anthology entitled Resistance, Rebellion, Life: 50 Poems Now. Majmudar’s forthcoming volume, a hybrid of prose, drama, and poetry, is Three Metamorphoses (Orison Books, 2024).
NONFICTION: Majmudar’s essays have appeared in Marginalia at the Los Angeles Review of Books, where he is a contributing editor, as well as The Best American Essays 2018, The New York Times, and the Times of India, among several other publications. His collection of essays, focusing on Indian religious philosophy, history, and mythology, is Black Avatar and Other Essays (Acre Books, 2023). Twin A: A Memoir (Slant Books, 2023) is a memoir, in prose and verse, about his son’s struggle with congenital heart disease.
FICTION: Majmudar’s work as a novelist includes two works of historical fiction centered around the 1947 Partition of India, Partitions (Holt/Metropolitan, 2011) and The Map and the Scissors (HarperCollins India, 2022). His first children’s book also focuses on Indian history and is entitled Heroes the Colour of Dust (Puffin India, 2022). Majmudar has also penned a tragicomic, magical realist fable of Indian soldiers during World War I, Soar (Penguin India, 2020). The Abundance (Holt/Metropolitan, 2013), by contrast, is a work of contemporary realism exploring Indian-American life. Majmudar’s long-form fiction has garnered rave reviews from NPR’s All Things Considered, The Wall Street Journal, Good Housekeeping, and The Economist, as well as starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist; his short fiction won a 2017 O. Henry Prize.
MYTHOLOGY: Majmudar’s work in Hindu mythology includes a polyphonic Ramayana retelling, Sitayana (Penguin India, 2019), and The Book of Vows (Penguin India, 2023), the first volume in a trilogy that retells the ancient epic poem, Mahabharata. The forthcoming volumes are entitled The Book of Discoveries and The Book of Killings. He has also composed a forthcoming original mythological story cycle called The Later Adventures of Hanuman (Penguin India, 2024).
TRANSLATION: His work as a translator includes Godsong: A Verse Translation of the Bhagavad-Gita, with Commentary (Knopf, 2018), available both in the United States and India.
Charles Malone
Charles Malone grew up in rural Northeastern Ohio, headed west to the Rockies, came back to the Great Lakes, and has loved all of it. His first full-length collection, Working Hypothesis, is out with Finishing Line Press in 2020. His chapbook “Questions About Circulation” was published by Driftwood Press as part of the Adrift Chapbook Series. He edited the collection “A Poetic Inventory of Rocky Mountain National Park” with Wolverine Farm Publishing and has work recently published or forthcoming in Hotel Amerika, The Best of Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac, The Sugar House Review, The Dunes Review, and Saltfront. Charles now works at the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University coordinating community outreach programs.