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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Sharon Hatfield
About Sharon Hatfield
Sharon Hatfield grew up loving Nancy Drew mysteries and listening to her grandmother read Grimm’s Fairy Tales aloud. Years later, she’s still interested in mysteries of various kinds, which has influenced her choice of nonfiction book topics. Her newest book, Enchanted Ground: The Spirit Room of Jonathan Koons, was published by Ohio University Press in October 2018.
A native of Ewing, Virginia, she began writing poems and stories at an early age. After earning undergraduate degrees in English and biology at Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee, she became a newspaper reporter in Virginia. Sharon moved to Ohio in 1985 and later earned a master’s degree in journalism from Ohio University and an MFA in creative nonfiction from Goucher College in Maryland. She has worked as a reporter, editor, English professor and manuscript consultant.
Sharon has twice received an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, most recently in spring 2018 for her work on Enchanted Ground. Her previous book Never Seen the Moon: The Trials of Edith Maxwell won the Weatherford and Chaffin awards for nonfiction.
She has served as a panelist for the Kentucky Arts Council and on the faculty of the Appalachian Writers’ Workshop in Hindman, Kentucky, and the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival in Harrogate, Tennessee. In her adopted hometown of Athens, Ohio, she is a member of the Southeast Ohio History Center and is active in environmental work. She also volunteers as an adviser to the Jenco Fund of the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio, an endowment that supports visionary leadership in the region.
About the Book
Enchanted Ground addresses spiritualism as a 19th-century religious movement and explains the place of Jonathan Koons and his family within it. The movement began in western New York in 1848 and extended into the cities and rural communities of the Midwest. Curious visitors travelled from as far as New Orleans to Athens County, Ohio, to a remote country cabin whose marvels would rival any of P. T. Barnum’s attractions. People dressed in homespun crowded in with those in city attire to experience what spiritualist Jonathan Koons and his son Nahum would demonstrate in the pitch dark of the log cabin night after night.
Jonathan Koons was considered one of the most impressive physical mediums of the 1850s. His Athens County “spirit room,” built specifically for theatrical-style séances, was known for a musical “angel band” that allegedly played along as Jonathan fiddled. On some evenings the audience was also treated to the appearance of spectral hands that scribbled messages on sheets of paper. Today Koons is considered by historians of religion to be the innovator of the trumpet used for voice communication in séances. Replicas of his famed spirit room were built in Ohio, Indiana, Massachusetts and beyond. Hatfield’s Enchanted Ground is not only a portrait of a charismatic medium, but the story of a countercultural force that shook American religion in the 19th-century.
Kathryn Haueisen
Kathryn Haueisen loves to meet fascinating people and write articles and books about them. Sometimes she lets her imagination run wild and writes short stories about imaginary people, loosely based on people she’s met. She’s published seven books, both non-fiction and fiction. Her most recent books are historical novels about the famous Mayflower voyage, the 17th century issues in Europe that led to the voyage, and the first encounters between the New England settlers and the Indigenous peoples. She has published dozens of articles in assorted faith-based and consumer publications. Since retiring from active ministry as an ordained Protestant pastor she has been focusing on writing regular blogs and a monthly newsletter at http://www.howwisethen.com.
Fern Haught
Fern Haught (they/them) is an author, illustrator, and adjunct professor based in Cleveland Heights, OH. They love crafting stories incorporating queer characters and their relationships, often set in magical worlds. Their two cats, Binx and Honey, are often looking over their shoulder while they work, and do a great job of being honorary co-authors. When they aren’t creating books they decorate cookies at a local bakery and do background painting for games. The Baker and the Bard is their debut graphic novel!
Stephen Haven
Stephen Haven is the author of The Last Sacred Place in North America, selected by T.R. Hummer as winner of the 2010 New American Press Poetry Prize. He has published two previous collections of poetry, Dust and Bread, for which he was named 2009 Ohio Poet of the Year, and The Long Silence of the Mohawk Carpet Smokestacks. He is also author of the memoir The River Lock: One Boy’s Life Along the Mohawk. He has a Ph.D. in American Civilization from New York University and an MFA in Poetry from the University of Iowa. His poems have appeared in The Southern Review, American Poetry Review, Parnassus, Literary Imagination, Crazyhorse, Guernica, Salmagundi, Northwest Review, Image, Western Humanities Review, World Literature (Beijing), and in many other journals. He is Director of the Ashland University MFA Program in Poetry and Creative Nonfiction in Ashland, Ohio, and Director of the Ashland Poetry Press.
Sherri Hayes
Sherri spent most of her childhood detesting English class. It was one of her least favorite subjects because she never seemed to fit into the standard mold. She wasn’t good at spelling, or following grammar rules, and outlines made her head spin. For that reason, Sherri never imagined becoming an author. At the age of thirty, all of that changed. After getting frustrated with the direction a television show was taking two of its characters, Sherri decided to try her hand at writing an alternate ending, and give the characters their happily ever after. By the time the story finished, it was one of the top ten read stories on the site, and her readers were encouraging her to write more.
Writing has become a creative outlet that allows her to explore a wide range of emotions, while having fun taking her characters through all the twists and turns she can create.
Wil Haygood
Will Haygood is a former Boston Globe (where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist) and Washington Post reporter. Haygood has received writing fellowships from the Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Alicia Patterson Foundations. His biographies of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Sammy Davis Jr., Sugar Ray Robinson, and Thurgood Marshall have been widely acclaimed. Haygood also wrote the New York Times bestseller, The Butler: A Witness to History, which was adapted into an award-winning movie. Haygood is currently serving an appointment as Boadway Visiting Distinguished Scholar at his alma mater, Miami University, Ohio.
William Heath
William Heath was born in Youngstown, grew up in Poland, Ohio, with a BA from Hiram College and a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University. He has taught American literature and creative writing at Kenyon, Transylvania, Vassar, the University of Seville, and Mt. St. Mary’s University, where the William Heath Award is given annually to the best student writer. He is the author of three novels: The Children Bob Moses Led (winner of the Hackney Literary Award), Blacksnake’s Path, and Devil Dancer, three poetry books: The Walking Man, Steel Valley Elegy, and Going Places, two chapbooks: Night Moves in Ohio and Leaving Seville, a work of history: William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest (winner of two Spur Awards), and a collection of interviews: Conversations with Robert Stone. He can be found online at http://www.williamheathbooks.com
John Hegenberger
Award-winning author, John Hegenberger has produced more than a dozen books since mid-2015, including several popular series: Stan Wade LAPI in 1959, Eliot Cross Columbus-based PI in 1988, and TRIPLEYE, featuring the first private eye agency on Mars. He’s the father of three, tennis enthusiast, collector of silent films, hiker, Francophile, B.A. Comparative Lit., ex-Navy, and happily married for 48 years and counting. Active member of SFWA, PWA, SinC and ITW. His novel SPYFALL won a 2016 award at Killer Nashville.
Susan Gee Heino
Susan Gee Heino has been writing romance novels for over fifteen years. She has published with major New York houses as well as independently. Her career began in Historical Romance, and she has also written several contemporary titles for the Love Inspired imprint. Currently she is writing for Harlequin Suspense. Ms. Heino has two adult children and lives in rural Ohio with her pastor husband, two pampered dogs, several demanding cats, and a barnyard full of free-loading poultry who are more popular on social media than she is. She loves to get to know her readers and invites everyone to connect with her on Facebook or at http://www.SusanGH.com