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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Wendy McVicker
Wendy McVicker, 2020-2022 poet laureate of Athens, Ohio, is a longtime Ohio Arts Council teaching artist. Her previous books include the dancer’s notes (Finishing Line Press, 2015), the self-published collaboration with visual artist John McVicker Sliced Dark (2018), Zero, a Door (The Orchard Street Press, 2021), and Stronger When We Touch, a collaboration with poet Cathy Cultice Lentes (The Orchard Street Press, 2023). Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies over the years, including Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Sheila-Na-Gig Online, Gyroscope Review, and Northern Appalachia Review. She loves collaborating with artists in many mediums and performs with instrumentalist Emily Prince under the name “another language altogether” whenever she gets the chance. Her children having grown and flown, she lives surrounded by the green hills of southeastern Ohio with her husband and a Hemingway cat named Dora.
Wendy McVicker
Wendy McVicker, 2020-2022 poet laureate of Athens, Ohio, is a longtime Ohio Arts Council teaching artist. Her previous books include the dancer’s notes (Finishing Line Press, 2015), the self-published collaboration with visual artist John McVicker Sliced Dark (2018), Zero, a Door (The Orchard Street Press, 2021), and Stronger When We Touch, a collaboration with poet Cathy Cultice Lentes (The Orchard Street Press, 2023). Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies over the years, including Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Sheila-Na-Gig online, Gyroscope Review, and Northern Appalachia Review. She loves collaborating with artists in many mediums and performs with instrumentalist Emily Prince under the name “another language altogether” whenever she gets the chance. Her children having grown and flown, she lives surrounded by the green hills of southeastern Ohio with her husband and a Hemingway cat named Dora.
Laura Meckler
Laura Meckler is national education writer for the Washington Post, where she covers education across the country as well as national education policy and politics. She previously reported on the White House, presidential politics, immigration, and health care for the Wall Street Journal, as well as health and social policy for the Associated Press. Her honors include a Nieman Fellowship and Livingston Award for National Reporting, and she was part of a team that won the George Polk Award for Justice Reporting. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and two sons. Learn more: https://www.laurameckler.com/
Matthew Meduri
Matthew Meduri is a writer and educator living in the Midwest. His writing has appeared in Belt Magazine, Catamaran, Chautauqua, Gastronomica, Story, and others. He was twice listed in “Other Distinguished Food Writing” in Best American Food Writing and is the recipient of an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. Collegiate Gothic is his first novel.
Dan Mendez Moore
Dan Méndez Moore was born and raised in Cincinnati and received his bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies at Portland State University. He first got involved in social justice organizing during high school, when he founded the Cincinnati Radical Youth, and has never stopped. He currently works organizing low-wage workers at SEIU Local 26 in Minneapolis, MN. His comics have been published in Labor Notes and Cincinnati Street Vibes and he has a series of comics used as popular education tools for low-wage workers fighting for change.
Linda Mercadante
Linda Mercadante is the B. Robert Straker Professor of Historical Theology at The Methodist Theological School in Ohio and is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church.
Gary Meszaros
Gary Meszaros, a retired teacher, has been a nature photographer for more than 35 years. His work has appeared in several books and magazines, including Smithsonian, National Wildlife, National Parks Magazine, Natural History, and Timeline. Previous books include four titles on various facets of Ohio’s natural history.
Philip Metres
Philip Metres is the author of ten books, including Shrapnel Maps (2020), The Sound of Listening: Poetry as Refuge and Resistance (2018), Pictures at an Exhibition (2016), Sand Opera (2015), I Burned at the Feast: Selected Poems of Arseny Tarkovsky (2015), and others. His work has garnered the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lannan Fellowship, two NEAs, six Ohio Arts Council Grants, the Hunt Prize, the Adrienne Rich Award, three Arab American Book Awards, the Watson Fellowship, the Lyric Poetry Prize, Creative Workforce Fellowship, and the Cleveland Arts Prize. He is professor of English and director of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights program at John Carroll University
Karen Meyer
David Meyers
A graduate of Miami University and The Ohio State University, David Meyers can’t seem to keep from writing stuff. His lifelong interest in history has led him to turn out a number of non-fiction books on a variety of topics, especially those neglected by others. He frequently collaborates with his daughter, Elise Meyers Walker. He has also authored several novels and a handful of works for the stage, including two full length musicals. In 2019, he was inducted into the Ohio Senior Citizens Hall of Fame for his contributions to Ohio history. Learn more at: https://www.explodingstove.com/