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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Aya Khalil
Aya Khalil is the award-winning author of picture books and board books. Aya holds a master’s degree in education. Aya and her books have been featured on Oprah Daily, The Washington Post, and USA Today. She immigrated from Egypt to the United States when she was young and currently lives with her partner and three children in Northwest Ohio. Aya invites you to visit her online at: ayakhalil.com.
Intisar Khanani
Intisar Khanani grew up a nomad and world traveler. She has lived in five different states as well as in Jeddah on the coast of the Red Sea. Until recently, Intisar wrote grants and developed projects to address community health with the Cincinnati Health Department, which was as close as she could get to saving the world. Now she focuses her time on her two passions: raising her family and writing fantasy. She is the author of The Sunbolt Chronicles and Thorn.
Brendan Kiely
Brendan Kiely is The New York Times bestselling author of All American Boys (with Jason Reynolds), Tradition, The Last True Love Story, and The Gospel of Winter. His most recent book is The Other Talk: Reckoning with Our White Privilege. His work has been published in over a dozen languages, and has received the Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award, the Walter Dean Meyers Award, and ALA’s Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults. A former high school teacher, he is now on the faculty of the Solstice MFA Program. He watches too much basketball and reads too many books at the same time, but most importantly, he lives for and loves his wife and son.
David Kimmel
David Kimmel is a descendant of one of the suspects in the Secaur murder. He is an award-winning professor of English at Heidelberg University in Tiffin, Ohio, where he investigates the boundary between historical writing and historical fiction. Outrage in Ohio is his debut work.
Mercedes King
Mercedes King is an Ohio native and founding member of Buckeye Crime Writers. Mixing fact with fiction is her specialty and has served her well when it comes to crafting stories about the private lives of famous people. Although she enjoys setting her tales in not-so-distant decades, she also writes contemporary mysteries and crime fiction.
Daniel Kirk
Daniel Kirk is the author and illustrator of fifty books for children, including his best-selling series of Library Mouse books, his non-fiction picture book Rhino in the House, The Big Slide, and his latest picture book series, Newton and Curie, Science Squirrels. Library Mouse is a Booklist Editor’s Choice book, an Education.com Essential gift, a Parenting Magazine Best Mom-Tested Book of the Year, a Kansas Reading Association Award Nominee, a Booksense pick, inner of the NAPPA Gold Award, the 2011 Young Hoosiers award. and a Choose to Read Ohio choice for 2013-2014. Booklist gave Library Mouse a starred review and said: “Put a mouse in a library and you have a sure seller; make the mouse a writer and you have a sure-fire hit…It’s a show stopper. Ready-made to introduce a class to writing activity…this book is fun, fun, fun.”
Newton and Curie, Science Squirrels tells the tale of a young squirrel and his sister, who learn to make simple machines and build a playground that’s just their size. They discover that science is for everyone—even squirrels! Kirkus says: “A positive and fun-filled challenge to recognize and apply the underlying principles of science in everyday life.” Booklist says: “Budding scientists will be delighted by the squirrel’s-eye view of the physical world.” Publisher’s Weekly says: “The story frames plainspoken, relatable explanations of core physics concepts and the scientific method.”
Matt Kish
Matt Kish has spent his whole life in the Midwest, moving often and taking on a variety of jobs. He has mowed lawns at hospitals, washed dishes at a pizza place, cooked in a college cafeteria, taught high school English, worked retail at a bookstore, and served as a hospital registrar. Finally, after earning a graduate degree in library science, he became a librarian.…
Read MoreMatt Kish has spent his whole life in the Midwest, moving often and taking on a variety of jobs. He has mowed lawns at hospitals, washed dishes at a pizza place, cooked in a college cafeteria, taught high school English, worked retail at a bookstore, and served as a hospital registrar. Finally, after earning a graduate degree in library science, he became a librarian. In 2011 Kish added illustrator to his list of accomplishments with the publication of Moby Dick in Pictures: One Picture for Every Page (Tin House Books). His take on Melville’s classic novel—Kish’s favorite since he was a child—won him wide acclaim with organizations from The Huffington Post to PBS. His illustrations have also appeared in The Desert Places (Curbside Splendor Publishing, 2013) and The Graphic Canon, Vol. 2 (Seven Stories Press, 2012). Visit him at http://www.spudd64.com/.
Katrina Kittle
Katrina Kittle’s newest novel, Morning in This Broken World, released September 1, 2023 and was an Amazon First Reads pick for August. Katrina is the author of four other novels for adults—Traveling Light, Two Truths & a Lie, The Kindness of Strangers, and The Blessings of the Animals—and one novel for tweens, Reasons to Be Happy. The Kindness of Strangers was a BookSense pick and was the Fiction winner for the 2006 Great Lakes Book Awards. She teaches creative writing in the Dayton area and online for Word’s Worth Writing Connections, is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Dayton, and is a frequent public speaker. She lives near Dayton with her fella, quirky cat, sweet beagle, and out-of-control garden. For more information on Katrina or her books, or to sign up for her fun, monthly newsletter, visit Katrinakittle.com.
Sophia R. Klein
Sophia Klein wrote her first book, turtle tide, as a gift for her younger brother, Caleb at age 14. She was motivated by her love of marine see life and the hope for a better future for both humans and see life. Her fascination began at the age of seven when she watched the “dolphin tale “movies and learned the inspirational stories of the dolphins, winter and help. She has since journeyed each summer to Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Florida to attend camps to learn about marine life and aspires to make working On the preservation of marine life partOf her future. Her love of art started is lifelong and she began studying art at four years of age. She has been studying art through community courses at Columbus College of Art and design since age 8 and continues now at age 14. This book is a culmination of her passions for marine life, preservation,storytelling, art and a love for family that she hopes all children will love and be inspired by.
Sophia R. Klein
Sophia Klein wrote her first book, turtle tide, as a gift for her younger brother, Caleb at age 14. She was motivated by her love of marine see life and the hope for a better future for both humans and see life. Her fascination began at the age of seven when she watched the “dolphin tale “movies and learned the inspirational stories of the dolphins, winter and help. She has since journeyed each summer to Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Florida to attend camps to learn about marine life and aspires to make working On the preservation of marine life partOf her future. Her love of art started is lifelong and she began studying art at four years of age. She has been studying art through community courses at Columbus College of Art and design since age 8 and continues now at age 14. This book is a culmination of her passions for marine life, preservation,storytelling, art and a love for family that she hopes all children will love and be inspired by.