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.
- You are searching within category(ies): Poetry
Jennifer Hambrick
A poet hailed for her “brilliant” imagery, “masterful” craftsmanship, and “uniquely musical voice,” Jennifer Hambrick is a seven-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and the author of four poetry collections: a silence or two (Red Moon Press), In the High Weeds (NFSPS Press), winner of the Stevens Prize from the National Federation of State Poetry Societies; Joyride (Red Moon Press), winner of the Marianne Bluger Book Award; and Unscathed (NightBallet Press). Hambrick was featured by former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser in American Life in Poetry, has appeared as featured poet with Rattle editor Tim Green on the livestream Rattlecast and was guest poet on the monthly virtual gathering A Conversation with Jimmy Pappas and Friends. Her poems appear in Rattle, The Columbia Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Santa Clara Review, Maryland Literary Review, San Pedro River Review, POEM, Modern Haiku, NOON: journal of the short poem, Contemporary Haibun Online, and in dozens of other literary journals and invited anthologies. Hambrick continually seeks to dismantle the boundaries between artforms and has often been featured in interdisciplinary collaborations, including with the world-renowned new music string quartet ETHEL; the Pulitzer Prize-nominated composer Mark Lomax, II; the VIVO Music Festival; the acclaimed visual artist Evangelia Philippidis; and the noted poet and literary critic Richard Gilbert, among others. A frequent recipient of poetry commissions, Hambrick served as poet laureate for the 75th-anniversary season (2022-23) of the world-class Chamber Music Columbus concert series and for the McConnell Arts Center Chamber Orchestra (Worthington) and was appointed the inaugural artist-in-residence at Bryn Du Mansion (Granville, Ohio). As program chair for the Haiku North America 2023 biennial meeting in Cincinnati, Hambrick attracted hundreds of poets from around the country and the world to Ohio. An Ohio Arts Council Teaching Artist, Hambrick is also an in-demand presence at readings, workshops, performances, and other public events throughout Ohio. Hambrick’s work has been honored with the Sheila-Na-Gig Press Poetry Prize, First Prize in the Haiku Society of America’s Haibun Award Competition, First Prize in the Martin Lucas Haiku Award Competition (U.K.), four first place awards and a Special Award in the inaugural (2024) Heliosparrow Haiku Frontier Awards for avant-garde haiku and short poetry, and many others. A classical musician, public radio broadcaster, multimedia producer, and cultural journalist, Jennifer Hambrick is a proud Columbus native and Worthington resident. jenniferhambrick.com
Pauletta Hansel
Kelly Harris-DeBerry
Kelly Harris-DeBerry received her MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass. She has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and Cave Canem. Some of her publishing credits include: 400yrs: The story of Black people in poems written from love 1619–2019, Words Beats & Life The Global Journal of Hip Hop, Angles in the Wilderness: Young and Black in New Orleans and Beyond, Torch Literary Magazine, The National Parks Service Centennial Commemoration publication with Sonia Sanchez, Yale University's Caduceus Journal, Southern Review, Say it Loud: Poems for James Brown and many more.…
Read MoreKelly Harris-DeBerry received her MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass. She has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and Cave Canem. Some of her publishing credits include: 400yrs: The story of Black people in poems written from love 1619–2019, Words Beats & Life The Global Journal of Hip Hop, Angles in the Wilderness: Young and Black in New Orleans and Beyond, Torch Literary Magazine, The National Parks Service Centennial Commemoration publication with Sonia Sanchez, Yale University’s Caduceus Journal, Southern Review, Say it Loud: Poems for James Brown and many more.
Her podcast episode for About Place Journal called Congo Square: Sustaining the Sacred Post-Katrina highlights her talents as a producer and researcher. Kelly is a former guest poetry editor for Bayou Magazine at the University of New Orleans. She serves her literary community as the New Orleans Poets & Writers’ Literary Coordinator and on various community boards. Kelly is a cultural leader with business savvy.
David Hassler
David Hassler, MFA directs the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University. In 2009, he cofounded Traveling Stanzas, a community arts project which creates illustrations in response to poems generated from community workshops in schools, healthcare facilities, libraries, senior centers, and veterans’ organizations. Hassler is the author or editor of ten books of poetry and nonfiction, including Dear Vaccine: Global Voices Speak to the Pandemic; Growing Season: The Life of a Migrant Community; and Speak a Powerful Magic: Ten Years of the Traveling Stanzas Poetry Project. His play, May 4th Voices: Kent State, 1970, based on the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project, was published by The Kent State University Press along with a Teacher’s Resource Book and was produced in 2020 as a national radio play by the WKSU NPR station. Hassler’s awards include Ohio Poet of the Year, the Ohioana Book Award, and the Carter G. Woodson Honor Book Award. His TEDx talk, “The Conversation of Poetry,” conveys the power of poetry to strengthen communities. In addition to his creative writing publications, he has co-authored articles on poetry, technology, and healing in the Journal of Palliative Medicine, the Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, and the Online Journal of Issues in Nursing.
Stephen Haven
Stephen Haven is the author of The Last Sacred Place in North America, selected by T.R. Hummer as winner of the 2010 New American Press Poetry Prize. He has published two previous collections of poetry, Dust and Bread, for which he was named 2009 Ohio Poet of the Year, and The Long Silence of the Mohawk Carpet Smokestacks. He is also author of the memoir The River Lock: One Boy’s Life Along the Mohawk. He has a Ph.D. in American Civilization from New York University and an MFA in Poetry from the University of Iowa. His poems have appeared in The Southern Review, American Poetry Review, Parnassus, Literary Imagination, Crazyhorse, Guernica, Salmagundi, Northwest Review, Image, Western Humanities Review, World Literature (Beijing), and in many other journals. He is Director of the Ashland University MFA Program in Poetry and Creative Nonfiction in Ashland, Ohio, and Director of the Ashland Poetry Press.
William Heath
William Heath was born in Youngstown, grew up in Poland, Ohio, with a BA from Hiram College and a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University. He has taught American literature and creative writing at Kenyon, Transylvania, Vassar, the University of Seville, and Mt. St. Mary’s University, where the William Heath Award is given annually to the best student writer. He is the author of three novels: The Children Bob Moses Led (winner of the Hackney Literary Award), Blacksnake’s Path, and Devil Dancer, three poetry books: The Walking Man, Steel Valley Elegy, and Going Places, two chapbooks: Night Moves in Ohio and Leaving Seville, a work of history: William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest (winner of two Spur Awards), and a collection of interviews: Conversations with Robert Stone. He can be found online at http://www.williamheathbooks.com
Anita M. Hessenauer
Anita M. Hessenauer is a freelance writer residing in Dublin, Ohio. She is a prolific author of both poetry and prose and has published articles in literary and religious periodicals. Her collection of poems, Authenticity was published in 2019, followed by her second poetry collection, We All Belong in 2021. Anita’s third poetry collection, Let Go was published in June 2023. Anita has a doctorate in French Literature from the University of Strasbourg, France and has taught at The Ohio State University, the University of Michigan, and Bowling Green State University. She is a fully professed Third-Order Carmelite. Anita’s poetry celebrates the inherent dignity of the human person, the sanctity of human life and the intrinsic value and worth of our natural world. Her poems challenge the reader to cast aside all preconceptions, prejudices, egotism, and a divisive mentality that prevents us from working for the good of the human person and of our created world. Anita’s books are available on Amazon and where books are sold. Learn more: https://anitamhessenauer.com/
Noor Hindi
Noor Hindi (she/her/hers) is a Palestinian-American poet and reporter. She is a 2021 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellow. Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow is her debut collection of poems. She lives in Dearborn. Learn more at: https://noorhindi.com/
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
Andrew Hudgins
Andrew Hudgins is the 2010 recipient of the Governor’s Award for the Arts in Ohio, poet Andrew Hudgins is also a past nominee for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. He won the Poets Prize for his narrative poem, After the Lost War. Born in Texas, Hudgins was educated at Huntingdon College and the Universities of Alabama and Kansas. Hudgins has mentored two generations of poets as a teacher at the University of Cincinnati and at The Ohio State University, where he currently serves as Humanities Distinguished Professor in English.