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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Mark Miesse
Mark Miesse is an up and coming author with a current focus on children’s poetry. His poetry is focused around younger children up to the tween years. The majority of his poetry is inspired by the likes of his own children and some of the goofy parenting sayings that he has most likely annoyed his children with through out the years. Mark currently lives in Medway, Ohio. He was born a buckeye and has been his only place called home.
Candice Millard
Candice Millard is the author of four New York Times bestselling books. Her first book, The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection and a Book Sense Pick, won the William Rockhill Nelson Award, was a finalist for the Quill Awards, and has been published in multiple foreign editions. Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine & the Murder of a President, won the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, the PEN Center USA award for Research Nonfiction, the One Book-One Lincoln Award, the Ohioana Award, and the Kansas Notable Book Award.
Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape and the Making of Winston Churchill, was an Indie Next pick, a top ten critics pick by the New York Times and named Amazon’s number one history book of 2016. Millard’s most recent book, released in May of 2022, is River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile. She is the recipient of the 2017 BIO Award, and her work has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, the Guardian, National Geographic and Time magazine. She lives in Kansas City with her husband and three children. https://www.candicemillard.com/
Patricia Miller
Patricia Miller is best known for relatable characters, clever twists and turns and feel-good endings, spanning the mystery, sci- fi and romance genres. Look for her titles: Mysterious Tales of the Unexplained Vols 1-4, Love on the Lakefront and The Joshua sci-fi trilogy. Her books have received awards from Next Generation Indie Awards, American Book Fest Awards, and a Second Place Purple Dragonfly Award in the mystery category for Mysterious Tales of the Unexplained, Vol 3. She is the award-winning author of eight published books thus far: four mystery collection volumes (entertaining readers from ages 12 to well in their 80’s) all with that cozy mystery feel, a completed YA Sci Fi Sweet Romance trilogy (suitable for ages 15 and up) and she has a featured story in a romance anthology, Love on the Lakefront, with all tales set in the Great Lakes Region. Her mystery collections feature illustrations from high school and middle school art students from all over the state of Ohio which are chosen following a call for submissions. Scenes come alive with this unique collaboration between young Ohio artists and mysterious and perplexing whodunits. Patricia grew up in a small town in Ohio and has worked as a mental health clinical counselor for the past thirty-five plus years. She sits on the planning committee for the Dover Canal Town Book Festival and has given several presentations including an interactive presentation for West Virginia State Writing Winners in grades 7-9, focusing on character development. When not writing she enjoys hiking/biking weekend trips or indulging in British murder mystery marathons. Follow her at: https://www.facebook.com/patriciamillerauthor/
Jeff Miller
Jeff Miller is a middle-grade author and former camp counselor originally from Kent, Ohio. He loves snow, coffee, and visiting schools to connect with young readers. His mom, a 2018 heart transplant recipient, has always inspired him to face life with humor and heart. He is the author of The Nerdy Dozen series, middle-grade books about video games, friendship, top-secret aircrafts, positivity, and ostriches. His latest middle-grade novel, Rare Birds, is authentically inspired by his personal experience of living through his own parent’s heart transplant. Miller currently lives in Chicago, where he keeps asking his cats for writing advice. Learn more at his website: https://www.jeffmillerbooks.com/
Darin Miller
Darin Miller grew up in Rosemount, a suburb of Portsmouth, Ohio. He currently resides in Grove City. While he has worked in Information Technology for three decades, he has not solved a single, solitary crime to date. He is the BookFest award-winning author of the Ohio-based Dwayne Morrow mystery series, as well as the unrelated short story collection, Broken Bits and Bobs. With equal parts action, humor, suspense and mystery, the Dwayne Morrow series features characters you’re sure to love—and in some cases, loathe.
Brandon Marie Miller
Brandon Marie Miller earned her degree in American History from Purdue University. She writes about famous people and common folk, about great events and everyday life. Her award-winning books for young people have been honored by the International Reading Association, the National Council for the Social Studies, the American Library Association, the Society of School Librarians International, Voice of Youth Advocates, Bank Street College, the Junior Library Guild, the New York Public Library and the Chicago Public Library, among others.
Brandon encourages readers to think of history as the greatest story of all. Fiction has nothing on history for tales of courage, sacrifice, redemption, cruelty and betrayal. As a writer of history Brandon aims to inspire readers with stories of people who have struggled, overcome great odds, and made a contribution to our human spirit. It’s no coincidence that “story” is right there in the word history!
Born and raised in Illinois, Brandon lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. When not researching and writing, she loves to read biographies and murder mysteries, travel, play games, attend the ballet, watch sports and old movies from the 1930s and 1940s, and enjoy great conversation. She includes her middle name on all her books so people know she is a girl named “Brandon”
Find out more:
http://www.brandonmariemiller.com
http://hands-on-books.blogspot.com
Tonya Mitchell
Ever since reading Jane Eyre in high school, Tonya has been drawn to dark stories, particularly of the Gothic variety. Her influences include Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, and Bram Stoker. More contemporarily, she loves the work of Shirley Jackson, Agatha Christie, Victoria Holt, Margaret Atwood, and Laura Purcell. When she landed on a story about a woman who pretended to be insane in order to write a newspaper story, she knew she’d landed on something she was meant to write. Tonya received her BA in journalism from Indiana University. Her short fiction has appeared in The Copperfield Review, Words Undone, and The Front Porch Review, as well as in various anthologies, including Furtive Dalliance, Welcome to Elsewhere, and Glimmer and Other Stories and Poems, for which she won the Cinnamon Press award in fiction. She is a self-professed Anglophile and is obsessed with all things relating to the Victorian period. She is a member of the Historical Novel Society North America and resides in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband and three wildly energetic sons.
J. P. Mitchell
J.P. Mitchell is an educator, writer, speaker and creator whose passion is to help leaders to link vision to opportunity through the power of words. She is a two-time TEDx speaker and independent publisher of Sweet Fire, an empowerment anthem for girls and women. On J.P.’s favorite things list are good music, engaging conversation, and the great outdoors. She lives in Columbus, Ohio with her husband and two children.