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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Craig Sanders
Craig Sanders is an author, educator and historian living with his wife Mary Ann Whitley in University Heights, Ohio. He is the author of six books focusing on railroad history. His most recent book, Cleveland Mainline Railroads, was published in February 2014 by Arcadia Publishing. Arcadia also published three others books that he wrote: Canton Area Railroads (2009), Mattoon and Charleston Area Railroads (2008) and Akron Railroads (2007). He is the author two books published by Indiana University Press: Amtrak in the Heartland (2006) and Limited Locals, and Expresses in Indiana, 1838-1971 (2003).
He is a frequent contributor to Trains magazine and is president of the Akron Railroad Club. Aside from writing, he enjoys traveling and photography.
He is a frequent contributor of feature articles to Trains magazine and is president of the Akron Railroad Club. He is the webmaster of the ARRC website, http: akronrrclub.wordpress.com/ which presents news, features and photographs about railroad and public transportation operations in Ohio and surrounding states.
Sanders has been a journalist and taught journalism, public relations and mass communications for more than 30 years. He worked as a reporter and copy editor at daily newspapers in Mattoon, Illinois; Bloomington, Indiana; Evansville, Indiana; and Indianapolis. His essays on the life in higher education and issues in journalism appear frequently on his LinkedIn page.
He has taught at Cleveland State University, Kent State University, John Carroll University, Penn State University, Indiana University and the University of Southern Indiana. He earned a Ph.D. in mass communications and an M.A. in journalism from Indiana University, an M.A. in political studies from Sangamon State University (now University of Illinois-Springfield), and a B.A. in history and political science from Eastern Illinois University. For more information about Sanders, check out his website at csanders429.wordpress.com
Rikki Santer
Rikki Santer’s poetry has appeared in numerous publications both nationally and abroad including Ms. Magazine, Poetry East, The Journal of American Poetry, Hotel Amerika, Crab Orchard Review, Grimm, Slipstream and The Main Street Rag. Her work has received many honors including five Pushcart and three Ohioana book award nominations as well as a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her eighth collection, Drop Jaw, inspired by the art of ventriloquism, was published by NightBallet Press in the spring of 2020.
Gregg Sapp
Gregg Sapp is a Pinnacle Award winning the author of the Holidazed series of cultural satires, each of which is centered around a different holiday. To date, there are seven books in the series, beginning with The Christmas Donut Revolution to the most recent, Mother Fracking Earth Day. Previous books include his dollar store epic, Dollarapalooza (Switchgrass Books, 2011), and Fresh News Straight from Heaven which is based on the folklore of Johnny Appleseed (Evolved 2018). He also writes essays, humor, poetry and short fiction that has appeared in literary journals far and wide. A native Ohioan, Gregg now writes full time and lives in Tumwater, WA. For more, see sappgregg.net
Patricia Sargeant
Patricia Sargeant is a national best-selling author. She writes romance as Patricia Sargeant and Regina Hart, and mysteries as Olivia Matthews. Her work has been reviewed in national publications such as Publishers Weekly, USA Today, Kirkus Reviews, Suspense Magazine, Mystery Scene Magazine, Library Journal and BookRiot. Patricia was drawn to write romance because she believes love is the greatest motivation. Her mysteries put ordinary people in extraordinary situations to have them find “the hero inside.” For more information about Patricia and her work, visit PatriciaSargeant.com
Ashish K. Saxena
Ashish K. Saxena is a published academic researcher, and sci-fi writer whose work in each of these areas revolves around the efficient and ethical use of artificial intelligence. He strives to explore the crossroads of technology and the humanities, underscoring how social structures and interactions evolve alongside scientific innovation.
In his fictional science book series, “Ava’s New World: A Dystopian Sci-Fi Odyssey,” Ashish opens the door to a world where technology and society navigate uncharted territories. Readers are drawn into futuristic scenarios where AI and humanity coexist, collide, and redefine the boundaries of existence.
Ava’s New World is only the first phase of a saga that will extend from the depths of artificial minds to the farthest reaches of the universe.
Brandy Schillace
I grew up in an underground house, next to a graveyard, in abandoned coal lands… with a pet raccoon. Oddly, this tends not to surprise people as much as I think it will. My rural community skirted the poverty line, a place of failed industry and orange rivers, poor health, and poorer access to healthcare. As a result, I spent my childhood reading a lot about disease and going to a lot of funerals. I ended up with a Ph.D. and a career in science history, which is probably a likely thing to happen when you spend your early years in a cemetery.
I’ve worked in an English Department, a History Department, and for a Medical Anthropology journal. I spent five years as a research associate in a medical museum among amputation saws, surgery kits, and smallpox vaccines—and now, in addition to being an author, I’m Editor-in-Chief for BMJ’s Medical Humanities Journal. I tend to fall outside the borders and binaries on every side.
I always liked the line by Walt Whitman: I contain multitudes. Each of us are completely unique sets of data and DNA, blood and bones, bits and pieces of ancient stardust (and some microplastics). We don’t just have fingerprints. We are fingerprints — completely unique phenomenon in the universe, never before and never to be again. I am a truck, a train, a bulldog in a wind-tunnel; I’m also autistic. I live in the middle spaces where the contradictions are, containing bits of astral matter, aspects of both genders and possibly some dragons and vampires. I do history the way most people climb mountains–I get my hands dirty–I end up in catacombs, archives, basements. As you can imagine, this sort of thing doesn’t fit in a box very well. Then again, life is more interesting at the intersections.
***Addendum on that pet raccoon… She eventually figured out how to open the fridge. It was a whole thing.
Check out her website: https://brandyschillace.com/
J.H. Schiller
J. H. Schiller writes speculative fiction with a flair for the weird and a healthy dose of the absurd. She earned a graduate degree in international affairs and worked for the federal government in Washington, DC. She has since escaped to Ohio, where she is the founder and President of Dublin Creative Writers, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides education and community for authors in Ohio and beyond. Her short fiction has been featured in several anthologies and digital publications. The first two volumes in her Comedy of Horrors series, The Witch of Tophet County and Playing with Fire, are available now from Podium Publishing. She is a member of the SFWA.
Ken Schneck
Ken Schneck is an author, professor, radio host, and rabble rouser. His travelogue, “Seriously, What Am I Doing Here?: The Adventures of a Wondering and Wandering Gay Jew” was published in 2017, “LGBTQ Cleveland” was released in 2018, and “LGBTQ Columbus” hits the shelves in June of 2019. He is a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post, Cleveland Magazine and FreshWater Cleveland, and currently serves as the Editor for Prizm Magazine, Ohio’s only LGBTQ publication. For 10 years, he was the producer/host of “This Show is So Gay,” the award-winning, long-running radio show/podcast. In his spare time, he is a Professor of Education at Baldwin Wallace University.
Amy Schneider
Amy Schneider is an American software engineer and recent Jeopardy! champion. Following an impressive forty-game winning streak, she became the most successful woman ever to compete on Jeopardy!. She is second all-time in the show’s history, trailing only Ken Jennings. Amy is also the first openly transgender contestant to qualify for the Tournament of Champions. She has been covered in People, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, USA TODAY, and more, and she has appeared on Good Morning America.
Jennifer Schomburg Kanke
Jennifer Schomburg Kanke, after spending most of her life in Ohio, now lives in Florida. Her work has recently appeared in New Ohio Review, Pleiades, Massachusetts Review, and Shenandoah. She is the winner of a Sheila-Na-Gig Editor’s Choice Award for Fiction. Her zine about her experiences undergoing chemotherapy for ovarian cancer, Fine, Considering, is available from Rinky Dink Press (2019). Her full-length poetry collection, The Swellest Wife Anyone Ever Had, about Appalachian Ohio, is available now from Kelsay Books. She can be found on YouTube hosting the Meter Cute Interviews podcast focusing on interviews with contemporary writers on Meter&Mayhem.