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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Jane Congdon
Jane Congdon grew up in the mountains of West Virginia. After graduating from Concord College (now Concord University) she made a career of words, working as an English teacher and a newspaper reporter before finding her niche as a textbook editor in Cincinnati, Ohio. She retired in 2009 after 30 years to write and take on selected editing projects.
At age 59, Jane followed Dracula’s footsteps through Transylvania with a guide, resulting in the memoir It Started with Dracula: The Count, My Mother, and Me. She then co-authored her brother’s memoir, Mr. Joe: Tales from a Haunted Life. Mr. Joe was a finalist for the 2014 Ohioana Book Award in Nonfiction.
At 69, Jane returned to the mountains as a backpacker on the Appalachian Trail. To date she has hiked 1,195 miles of the AT in 7 of its 14 states–Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Maine–alone, with friends, and with a glass good-luck charm named Ms. Rabbit. How the WILD EFFECT Turned Me into a Hiker at 69 is the story of Jane’s unlikely journey from the Ohio suburbs to the back country of the Appalachian Mountains.
All three books were published by Bettie Youngs Book Publishers and are available from Amazon and other outlets.
Joseph Congeni
Joseph Congeni, MD is a graduate of Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine (NEOUCOM). Dr. Congeni did his medical residency and sports medicine fellowship at Akron Children’s Hospital. He has been medical director of the Sports Medicine Center since 1988 and is an assistant professor of pediatrics at NEOUCOM.
Renee Casteel Cook
Renee Casteel Cook is a lifelong ice cream lover and recovering advertising industry account executive turned freelance writer, always with a focus on food and beverage. To balance out all of her diligent “research,” Renee runs, both for exercise and to keep up with her three lovely little girls, ages six and two (yep, twins!), all in training to enjoy eating equally as much as their mother. Thankfully, Renee not only married into a last name befitting a food writer, but theman who came with it lives up to the title, as her husband, Jim, is the head chef of the house. A Chicago native now based in the heart of the “Heart of It All,” Renee embraced the diverse food scene in Columbus through her 2016 title The Columbus Food Truck Cookbook and is excited to expand to cities and small towns throughout the state in this guide to Ohio ice cream. reneecasteelcook.com
Kevin Cordi
For over twenty years, Dr. Kevin Cordi has told stories in over forty states, England, Singapore, Scotland, and Japan. His story work has been commissioned by the National Youth Storytelling Hall of Fame, Newsweek, and The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. As a story teacher he is considered one of the “nation’s primary advocates for youth storytelling!”
Kevin listens everywhere he goes.…
Read MoreFor over twenty years, Dr. Kevin Cordi has told stories in over forty states, England, Singapore, Scotland, and Japan. His story work has been commissioned by the National Youth Storytelling Hall of Fame, Newsweek, and The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. As a story teacher he is considered one of the “nation’s primary advocates for youth storytelling!”
Kevin listens everywhere he goes. He keeps an ear to the ground so that he can hear the stories of America and beyond—he tells the stories he hears. He shares the stories of people such as Mooney Warther, considered the greatest wood carver in the country and the legendary Chocolate Bar Bomber and his air drops during the Berlin Air Lift. He listens and he tells the stories he hears. He uses his experience and critical listening skills as the landscape for teaching and developing stories. He believes good storytelling begins with effective listening. He has worked as an actor, teacher, door-to-door salesman (at age 14), disc jockey and gas station attendant. He believes this only enriches him as a storyteller and story teacher.
Carey Corp
CAREY CORP wrote her first book, a brilliant retelling of Star Wars, at the prodigious age of seven. Since then, her love affair of reinvention has continued to run amuck. She harbors a voracious passion (in no consistent order) for mohawks, Italy, musical theater, chocolate, and Jane Austen. Her debut novel for teens, THE HALO CHRONICLES: THE GUARDIAN, earned her national recognition. DOON, her latest young adult series from BLINK/HarperCollins, is inspired by the musical Brigadoon (used with permission from the Alan Jay Lerner Estate & the Frederick Loewe Foundation) and co-written with Lorie Langdon.
Shelley Costa
SHELLEY COSTA is a 2004 Edgar Award nominee for Best Short Story, and 2014 Agatha Award nominee for Best First Novel (You Cannoli Die Once, Simon and Schuster). She is the author of Basil Instinct (Simon and Schuster, 2014), Practical Sins for Cold Climates (Henery Press, 2016) and A Killer’s Guide to Good Works (Henery Press, 2016). Shelley’s short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Blood on Their Hands, and The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories. She teaches fiction writing at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Visit her at http://www.shelleycosta.com.
Bill Cotter
Bill was cooked slowly and evenly in the warm embrace of midwest suburbia. After studying art in Baltimore, he then moved to New York City where he found work as a pre-K art and music teacher. In between fingerpainting and singing songs he wrote and illustrated is debut book “Don’t Push the Button!” which has gone on to be a USA Today bestseller. Bill has since moved back to his hometown of Cleveland and spends his days drawing, playing music, and daydreaming.
Cynthia Crane
Cynthia A. Crane, Ph.D. is the author of All About Winston Churchill (Cardinal Press) and the acclaimed historical nonfiction, Divided Lives: The Untold Stories of Jewish-Christian Women in Nazi Germany (St. Martin’s Press/Macmillan), and is Associate Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati, BAC. Her poetry, nonfiction, and book reviews have appeared in various publications, such as Mid-American Review, Popular Culture Review, History Magazine, and H-Net.…
Read MoreCynthia A. Crane, Ph.D. is the author of All About Winston Churchill (Cardinal Press) and the acclaimed historical nonfiction, Divided Lives: The Untold Stories of Jewish-Christian Women in Nazi Germany (St. Martin’s Press/Macmillan), and is Associate Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati, BAC. Her poetry, nonfiction, and book reviews have appeared in various publications, such as Mid-American Review, Popular Culture Review, History Magazine, and H-Net. Crane has appeared on national radio and television programs, including C-Span Book-TV, and is a sought after speaker, having given nearly one hundred public presentations. Among her awards, she has received a Fulbright Scholarship, a Holocaust Education Foundation Summer Institute Fellowship, and a P.E.O. National Scholar’s Award.
Kambri Crews
Kambri Crews once lived with her deaf parents in a tin shed in Montgomery, Texas. She now owns and operates Ballyhoo Promotions, a PR and production company in New York City specializing in stand up comedy. She is also the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Burn Down the Ground (Random House) and a renowned storyteller. She has performed on The Moth, Literary Death Match, Risk! and Mortified and has appeared at SXSW Comedy, UCB Theatre, Gotham Comedy Club. Also a public speaker, she has given speeches at the University of Texas, Texas Book Festival, University of Oregon, SXSW (South by Southwest), DeafHope, and many other schools, colleges, book festivals, and events.