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): Middle Grade
Federico Erebia
Federico Erebia is a retired physician, woodworker, author, poet, and illustrator. He received a BA from the College of Wooster, and an MD from Brown University. He will receive the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Exceptional New Writer. Other distinctions for his debut novel, Pedro & Daniel (Levine Querido 2023) include: 2024 Ohioana Book Award, finalist; 2024 Massachusetts Book Award, longlist; 2024 Américas Book Award, Commended Title; 2024 Bank Street BEST BOOK; 2023 Kirkus BEST BOOK; and starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Shelf Awareness. He and his husband live near Boston, Massachusetts. https://fjebooks.com/index.html
Donna Farland-Smith
Donna Farland-Smith is an Associate Professor of Science Education in The School of Teaching & Learning at The Ohio State University. Her research that focuses on students’ perceptions and attitudes toward science and scientists as well as the characteristics of scientists that most positively affect the girl’s perception of scientists. She has over a decade’s experience in the classroom and previously taught science all grades K-12. She is co-author of two books for teachers through NSTA Press, Eureka! Science Alive through Scientists’ Stories and Intermediate Science Activities and Eureka! Science Alive through Scientists’ Stories and Primary Science Activities.
David S. FitzSimmons
David FitzSimmons is an award-winning free-lance photographer and writer. His nonfiction picture books have won twelve national book awards, including an IBPA Best Picture Book award in 2016. His Curious Critters children’s picture books have sold over 100,000 copies. A life-long educator, David has taught on all grade levels and now frequently visits schools to talk about connecting children and nature.
Amanda Flower
Amanda Flower is a USA Today bestselling and two-time Agatha Award-winning author of over fifty mystery novels. Her novels have received starred reviews from Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Romantic Times, and she had been featured in USA Today, First for Women, and Woman’s World. Her first Emily Dickinson Mystery, Because I Could Not Stop for Death, was an Agatha Award winner and Mary Higgins Clark Nominee. She currently writes for Penguin-Random House (Berkley), Kensington, and Sourcebooks. A former librarian, Flower and her husband own a farm and recording studio, and they live in Northeast Ohio with their adorable cats. http://www.amandaflower.com/.
Lynette Ford
Lynette (Lyn) Ford shares “Home-Fried Tales,” adaptations of folktales “from many places and many faces,” as well as her own original stories and personal narratives. Lyn’s rhythmic, interactive storytelling style encourages language and literacy skills, creative writing, and an appreciation for the oral tradition among all types of learners. Lyn’s storytelling is rooted in her family’s multicultural Affrilachian oral traditions, her research and interest in heritage and folklore, and her own love of stories.
Lyn’s work has been publicized on the PTO Today web site, and in Columbus Monthly and Columbus Parents magazines. Lyn has written for Storytelling Magazine, a national publication; her work is also included in story anthologies and resources for educators, including: the award winning The Storytelling Classroom: Applications Across the Curriculum, Literacy in the Storytelling Classroom (both from Libraries Unlimited), and Social Studies in the Storytelling Classroom (Parkhurst Brothers, Inc.); Sayin’ Somethin’: Stories from the National Association of Black Storytellers (National Association of Black Storytellers, Inc.); The August House Book of Scary Stories (August House), and its accompanying enrichment guide for teachers, and the 2011 publication Storytelling and QAR Strategies (Libraries Unlimited). Lyn’s CD, When the Gourd Broke, won a 2009 NAPPA Honors Award.
Lyn is also a Thurber House mentor to young writers. In 2012, Lyn was among the first 30 teaching artists from across the country to participate in professional-development sessions on the arts and Common Core State Standards at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; Lyn’s participation as an Ohio Teaching Artist in The Ohio State-Based Collaborative Initiative of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has provided additional opportunities for Lyn to share professional development workshops for educators and other mentors, in interactive sessions pertinent to benchmarks of academic content standards and diverse ways of learning. Lyn makes connections between the oral tradition and core reading and writing skills, in conjunction with the 21st Century Learning Skills:
- Collaboration and teamwork
- Creativity and imagination
- Critical thinking
- Problem solving
In the summer of 2007, Lyn received an Oracle Award for Leadership and Service from the National Storytelling Network. Lyn received a 2008 Friend of Education Award from Reynoldsburg public schools, for her ongoing contribution of creative learning and enrichment experiences as Herbert Mills Elementary School’s storyteller in residence. In 2012, Lyn was inducted into the National Association of Black Storytellers’ Circle of Elders. In 2013, Lyn received the National Storytelling Network’s Circle of Excellence award, for her continuing efforts and achievements in storytelling. In 2016, Lyn was recognized by the National Storytelling Network’s Youth, Educators and Storytellers Alliance (YES) for her past work as co-chairperson, advisor, and special projects chairperson.
For more than 25 years, Lyn has provided stories for public libraries’ summer reading programs, keynote and closing presentations, and workshops at universities, education and literacy conferences, and storytelling conferences and festivals. Lyn has appeared at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, and presented workshops for the National Storytelling Conference. Lyn has also been a storyteller-in-residence at the International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough. Lyn was named the winner of the Liars’ Contest (for tall tales, not lies!) at the 2005 National Association of Black Storytellers Conference and Festival; she has also shared stories and workshops at the TalkStory Festival in Hawaii, and at other national gatherings, including the St. Louis Storytelling Festival, the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival in Orem, Utah, the Eugene (Oregon) Multicultural Festival, the Northlands Storytelling Conference in Madison, Wisconsin, the Cape Clear Storytelling Festival in Ireland (with a return visit in Fall 2018), and the 2018 Sydney International Storytelling Conference in Australia. Since 2016, Lyn has been a keynote speaker or workshop facilitator for the Transformative Language Arts Network’s (Goddard College) Power of Words Conference; Lyn has also offered writing sessions through the Transformative Language Arts Network’s online classes, and spoken/written word sessions through the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina.
Lyn’s first publication as an individual author, 2012’s Affrilachian Tales: Folktales from the African-American Appalachian Tradition, has received a 2013 Anne Izard Storytellers’ Choice Award, and a 2013 Storytelling World Resources Award. The book is a compilation of stories from Lyn’s childhood memories, enriched with information on Affrilachian culture, and published by Parkhurst Brothers, Inc. Lyn’s second collection of Affrilachian folktales and family folkways, Beyond the Briar Patch: Affrilachian Folktales, Food and Folklore, received the 2015 Anne Izard Storytellers’ Choice Award. Both books, as well as Lyn’s collection of original, creepy twists on folk and fairytales, Hot Wind, Boiling Rain (which includes variants, resources, and creative writing exercises for older students and adults) are available from Parkhurst Brothers, Inc. through its website at http://www.parkhurstbrothers.com, Amazon.com, and other book merchants. 2017 saw the publication of a book co-authored with friend and fellow storyteller/teaching artist Sherry Norfolk: Boo-Tickle Tales: Not-So-Scary Stories for Ages 4-9, by Parkhurst Brothers. Lyn and Sherry are also proud of three recent or in-the-works publications: Storytelling Strategies for Reaching and Teaching Children with Special Needs (2017, ABC-CLIO); Supporting Diversity and Inclusion with Story: Authentic Folktales and Discussion Guides (2020, ABC-CLIO), and Speak Peace: Words of Wisdom, Work, and Wonder, from Parkhurst Brothers Publishing (Fall, 2019).
Lyn is currently a member/committee member of the following organizations: The Storytellers of Central Ohio and their community outreach committee, Columbus Story Adventures; The Ohio Storytelling Network; the Northlands Storytelling Network; The National Association of Black Storytellers; The National Storytelling Network, and the Transformative Language Arts Network (a partnership with Goddard College).
Lyn’s work has also branched out even further. Lyn is a Certified Laughter Yoga Teacher, sharing pre- and post-test relaxation techniques, workshops, keynotes, and icebreakers that incorporate both story and laughter exercises. Lyn is also a member of the Writers Council of the National Writing Project, which is comprised of writers who “want to bring greater attention to the importance of writing and the work of NWP…Writers Council members share NWP’s belief that writing is vital to thinking, creating, communicating, and participating in the world.” (quoted from the NWP website).
Ellen Fritz
Ellen Fritz is a retired teacher and high school counselor. Over the years of teaching reading and English to students in grades seven through twelve before becoming a counselor, she had the great opportunity to discuss numerous favorite books with students and also took their recommendations for her own reading.
She finally found herself with the time to give life to the stories that have always been patiently waiting in her head for an audience. Ellen wrote Mira to appeal to those middle grade/teen readers that she found so inspiring through her career as an educator.
Dee Garretson
Dee writes middle grade, young adult and adult fiction under her own name and also writes for the Boxcar Children series under the original author’s name. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with her family in a book-cluttered house surrounded by a semi-wild garden. Her two cats Piper and Poppy are her writing companions and the stars of Skype visits with book clubs. When Dee is not writing or reading, she is most likely watching old movies, cooking treats to go along with book reading or trying to learn to make jewelry.
Carole Gerber
Carole Gerber is a poet and children’s book author living in Powell, Ohio. She has written nearly two dozen picture books, early readers, and chapter books.
Gerber has worked as a high school and middle school English teacher, an adjunct professor of journalism at Ohio State, a marketing director, editor of a company magazine, a member of creative teams at an ad agency and a hospital, a contributing editor to a computer magazine, and – finally! – as a freelance writer of hundreds of elementary textbooks, magazine articles, speeches, annual reports, and patient education materials.
Besides being a “Jill” of many trades – or more precisely – one trade, writing, with many incarnations, Gerber is married to Mark, the mother of two grown daughters, Jess and Paige, and “Mimi” to Sara and Tyler, Paige’s children. In addition, she sponsors half a dozen children at a time through World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children of all faiths in more than 100 developing countries. Gerber keeps their photos posted to remind her of her blessings and responsibilities.
In her free time, she volunteers as a tour guide for children at a local nature preserve and farm. Gerber also enjoys gardening, though her enthusiasm dwindles as summer progresses, and reading, mostly for her own pleasure and edification. Gerber belongs to a neighborhood book discussion group, enjoys traveling to learn about other countries and cultures, and practices yoga which, like writing, is humbling and challenging. For more information, visit http://carolegerber.com/
Martin Gitlin
Martin Gitlin is an award-winning journalist and author based in Cleveland. He has had more than 130 books published since 2006. Most were written for students of all grade levels in the realms of sports, history/social studies, pop culture and biographies. Marty has also authored many very successful trade books, including The Great American Cereal Book and the highly acclaimed Powerful Moments in Sports: The Most Significant Sporting Events in American History. He is quite proud of his newest book, titled A Celebration of Animation: The 100 Greatest Cartoon Characters in Television History. Marty won more than 45 awards as a newspaper journalist before focusing on freelance writing. He also covered the Cleveland Browns for CBS Sports from 2009 to 2012 and is an experienced and fun presenter at schools and libraries.
Suzanne Goldsmith
Suzanne Goldsmith graduated from Harvard University and has worked as the marketing director for a foundation, an associate producer for public television documentaries, a newspaper reporter and freelance magazine writer, and a team leader in a youth community service program. Her first book, A City Year, is the true story of a year in a youth community service program.
Suzanne’s first middle-grade novel, Washashore, was the winner of the 2014 Green Earth Book Award, YA category, and was shortlisted for the Ohioana Book Award, Children’s category. In the book fourteen-year-old Clementine has left her city life in Boston to spend the winter on Martha’s Vineyard. She’s what the locals call a “washashore”: someone who has come to live on the island but isn’t from there. An outsider. Clem doesn’t have any friends and doesn’t fit in. Her mom and dad aren’t getting along. Coco, her friend, is three hours away. But then Clem finds a fallen osprey on the beach and gets involved with the effort to save these endangered birds. When she meets a lonely boy named Daniel, everything changes . . .
Suzanne is currently working on a second novel, set in an abandoned ski lodge in southern Ohio. She visits schools, libraries and summer programs to teach writing workshops and to talk about the writing process. She is also available to do joint visits with a raptor specialist who brings live birds into the classroom. She lives with her family in the Columbus area, and can be found on the web at http://www.suzanne-goldsmith.com.