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.
For more information about our collection and programming for authors, please click on the "Authors" main tab above.
- You are searching within category(ies): 2024
Will Hillenbrand
Will Hillenbrand is a celebrated author and illustrator whose works include eighty picture books for young readers. In addition to his own self-illustrated titles, he has also illustrated the works of writers and retellers, including Verna Aardema, Judy Sierra, Margery Cuyler, Judith St. George, Phyllis Root, Jane Yolen, Karma Wilson and Jane Hillenbrand. Will has spent most of his life in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he grew up as the youngest of four boys. His childhood routines revolved around the neighborhood, his parents’ barbershop, the Northern Hills Library, playing baseball, and drawing. He now works in a small studio in the upstairs of his Cape Cod home, which he shares with his wife, Jane, a kindergarten teacher. Their son Ian, a geologist, is an avid reader and writer of many published scientific papers. Currently, he is doing postdoctoral work at the United States Geological Survey in Denver, Colorado. School Library Journal said: “There’s not a word out of place in this blustery adventure. It’s a masterful collaboration of illustration and text. This cozy winter tale, with its striking pictures, may appear to be cold but is quite the opposite,” about his book The Voice In The Hollow. Learn more at http://www.willhillenbrand.com.
Conrade C. Hinds
Conrade C. Hinds was born in Nashville and graduated from Ball State University, where he studied architecture and industrial technology. He has lived in Ohio for forty years. A registered architect and a retired projects manager with the City of Columbus Department of Public Utilities, he is also a retired adjunct faculty member in the Engineering Technology Department at Columbus State Community College. His latest books is History of Buckeye Inventions, and he has published three other books: The Great Columbus Experiment of 1908, Columbus and the Great Flood of 1913, and Lost Circuses of Ohio.
Kate Hoefler
Kate Hoefler was born and still lives and writes in the rolling hills of Ohio’s Appalachia. She is the author of numerous books and loves the delicate tightrope that picture books stand on between the light that is and the light that could be. Three of her recent books, Rabbit and the Motorbike, Courage Hats, and In The Dark were Ohioana Floyd’s Pick Honor books. Her newest book, The Couch In The Yard, might allow readers to travel above and beyond their couches (wink-wink). She loves small dogs, pottery, being an introvert, and cheese. Follow her on Instagram: @katehoefler
Michelle Houts
Michelle Houts is the award-winning author of more than a dozen books for young readers, ranging from colorful, engaging picture books to adventurous middle-grade novels. Her newest book, HOPEFULLY THE SCARECROW (Flamingo Philomel, 2023) celebrates the power of hope and friendship when a scarecrow finds he has little control over his circumstances. Houts writes from a restored 1894 one-room schoolhouse. She is the creator of the 52 Letter Challenge. When she’s not writing, she is editing or encouraging young readers and writers through school visits and workshops.
Anna Lee Huber
Anna Lee Huber is the USA Today bestselling and Daphne award-winning author of the Lady Darby Mysteries, the Verity Kent Mysteries, and the Gothic Myths series, as well as the forthcoming historical fiction novel Sisters of Fortune: A Novel of the Titanic, and the anthology The Deadly Hours. She is a summa cum laude graduate of Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she majored in music and minored in psychology. She currently resides in Indiana with her family and is hard at work on her next novel. Visit her online at http://www.annaleehuber.com.
Annie Hunter Eriksen
Annie Hunter Eriksen is from Wooster, Ohio. Originally from Columbus, she came for the College of Wooster (’13), but stayed after falling in love with Wooster’s undeniable charm and realizing this town has the best ice cream in the world. Annie lives and breathes comics, cats, and coffee and had her first son in November 2022, whom she named after a superhero. Along Came a Radioactive Spider is about famed Marvel artist Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man. This is her second book. Find Annie at http://www.aheriksen.com and on Instagram at @ah_eriksen.
M. C. Jeter
M. C. Jeter is the indie author of The Gems, a new adult fantasy novel. She is set to graduate from the Ohio State University in May 2024 with a BS in Neuroscience and a minor in American Sign Language. For fun, M. C. likes to read, write, dance, sing and play on her Nintendo Switch. As of right now, M. C. has many diverse stories bouncing around in her brain that she is so excited to share with the world. M. C. Jeter began writing her debut novel in fourth grade and as she grew, her main character did too. From starting at 10 years old to ending at 17, Ruby, the main character of The Gems, will take you on an adventure full of love, regret, and challenges.
Mark Sebastian Jordan
Based in the central highlands of Ohio, Mark Sebastian Jordan is published internationally as a music critic, is a specialist in the history of murder and mayhem in rural Ohio, and is known far and wide as a poet, storyteller, and humorist. His books include The Ceely Rose Murders at Malabar Farm (2021), The Witch of Mansfield (2023), Slammer: Private Dick (2017), Murder Ballads: American Crime Poems (2014), and The Book of Jobs (2010). He has contributed to such notable anthologies as I Heard a Cardinal Sing: Ohio’s Appalachian Poets (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions), Eclipsing the Dark (Ohio Poetry Association), Gas Station Famous (OAC Books/Spartan Press), and Buzzkill Apocalypse (Night Ballet Press).
Timothy R. W. Jordan
Mariel Jungkunz
Mariel Jungkunz is a former journalist and a graduate of the Las Hermanas mentorship program for unpublished kidlit writers at Las Musas Books. Originally from Puerto Rico, she currently resides in Ohio, where she works as an editor for dictionary.com.