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): Adult
Jim Reuther
Jim Reuther received a bachelor’s in chemistry in 1973, a master’s in chemistry in 1976 and a doctorate in fuel science in 1979. In 1984, he retired as associate professor of fuel science after advising the scholarly research of five doctoral and seven master of science graduates. In 2015, he retired from a global nonprofit as a research leader in chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive weapons of mass destruction defense. He has traveled from Alaska to Afghanistan as a subject matter expert investigating fires and explosions, defeating improvised explosive devices (IEDs), reducing IED fireball skin burns, collecting forensic intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, and demilitarizing chemical weapons. He has won eight patents and an R&D100 Award for a top invention in the World in 1996. He is a 2011 Ohio Soccer Hall of Fame referee inductee. Reuther’s retirement plans include volunteering and more writing, including tales on light whispering and flame wizardry. He is Theresa Reuther’s widower; they were married for 36 years. He has two adult children.
Brad Ricca
Brad Ricca is the Edgar-nominated author of six books, including the new graphic novel (with artist Courtney Sieh) Ten Days in a Mad-house and the Ohioana Award winning Super Boys. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio. Learn more at: https://www.trueraiders.com/
Marci Rich
Marci Rich has published poetry, essays, and journalism, and earned honors from organizations and publications as varied as the Academy of American Poets, the Abiko Quarterly for James Joyce Studies (Japan), BlogHer, Huffington Post, and the Press Club of
Cleveland, from which she has twice won Best Freelance Writer in Ohio awards in its All Ohio Excellence in Journalism competitions in 2018 and 2019. The latter awards recognize her local history feature series, “Look
Back, Elyria,” which she writes for the Chronicle-Telegram and which forms the basis of Looking Back at Elyria: A Midwest City at Midcentury, her first nonfiction book. A graduate of Oberlin College, where she earned a bachelor of arts degree in English with a creative writing specialization, Marci has also studied memoir writing at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown,
Massachusetts. She also earned an associate of arts degree from Lorain County Community College. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Theta Kappa, the Authors Guild, the National Society of Newspaper
Columnists, the Press Club of Cleveland, Literary Cleveland, James River Writers, and the Lorain County Historical Society. A chapbook of her poems, Lights and Shadows, was published by Bottom Dog Press in
1985 under her former name, Marci Janas.
Conlee Ricketts
Conlee Ricketts has been an educator for over 30 years with her BSEd in Secondary Mathematics Education from The Ohio State University, and her MEd in Administration/Teacher Leader from Wright State University. Conlee’s honesty and humor helps you examine fears and vulnerabilities in a safe lighthearted way. Her life has been about surviving awkward social situations and problem solving. She is an expert at finding options, organizing a plan, and quieting over-active mind chatter long enough to calm the chaos of an incredibly human and messy life. She lives in Bexley, Ohio with her daughter, father, and a myriad of pets and their associated dirt.
James Alan Riley
James Alan Riley is an American poet whose work has appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, two Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowships from the Kentucky Arts Council, and an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council. Riley received his Ph.D. from Ohio University. He is a Professor of English at the University of Pikeville in Pikeville, KY.
Sandra Rivers-Gill
A Native Ohioan, Sandra Rivers-Gill is a poet, teaching artist, and performer. Her poetry has garnered numerous awards, and has been featured in journals and anthologies. She is a member of the Ohio Poetry Association and has participated in events such as Lit Youngstown Festival, Poetry Out Loud, Spoken & Heard, and the Toledo Arts Commission. She is editor of Dopeless Hope Fiends, a limited-addition anthology of poems penned by women recovering from substance and alcohol abuse published by The Radio Room Press (2018). As We Cover Ourselves With Light is her debut chapbook published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions (2023).
Merry Robert
Robert W. Merry is the author of Where They Stand; A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk; Sands of Empire; and Taking on the World. A longtime Washington journalist, commentator, and publishing executive, he covered government and politics for The Wall Street Journal for a decade and spent twenty-two years as an executive at Congressional Quarterly Inc., including twelve years as CEO. This is his fifth book. Merry lives with his wife in Langley, WA, and Washington, DC.
Jim Roberts
Jim Roberts grew up in rural East Texas. After college, he lived and worked briefly in Houston before moving to Cincinnati, Ohio in the early 1980s to pursue a business career. Now a full-time writer, he and his wife, the artist Donna Berry Roberts, split their time between Ohio and Texas, depending on whim, changes in the weather, or the beckoning of distant haints. His fiction has appeared in Prime Number Magazine, Rappahannock Review, Snake Nation Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, and The Arlington Literary Journal (ArLiJo). His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and twice named to the finalist list for the Screencraft Cinematic Short Story Award. Of Fathers & Gods is his first book.
Nicole Robinson
Nicole Robinson’s poems have appeared in Columbia Journal, The Fourth River, Great River Review, The Louisville Review, Spillway, Tahoma Literary Review, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of an Individual Excellence Award for poetry from the Ohio Arts Council and the Humanities Award from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Currently serving as the narrative medicine coordinator at Akron Children’s Hospital, she resides in Ohio. Learn more: https://www.nicolerobinsonpoetry.com/
