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): Adult
Teresa Woodard
Teresa Woodard wrote the new garden book, “American Roots.” She also is contributing garden editor at Midwest Living, where she covers everything from houseplants and bonsai to daffodils and peonies. A lifelong Ohioan (except for her college days studying journalism at Indiana University), she gardens on 2 acres outside Columbus. She also teaches youth about growing food at Highland Youth Garden in Columbus and serves as an advisor with America in Bloom. Learn more at: https://www.teresawoodard.com/
Scott Woods
Scott Woods is a writer and event organizer in Columbus, Ohio. Woods is the author of Urban Contemporary History Month (2016), We Over Here Now (2013), Prince and Little Weird Black Boy Gods (2017), and Black Night is Falling (2024). He has been featured multiple times in national press, including appearances on National Public Radio. He is the founder of Streetlight Guild, a performing arts non-profit, a 2018 Columbus Foundation Spirit of Columbus Award recipient, as well as the Greater Columbus Arts Council winner of the 2017 Columbus Makes Art Excellence Award for his event series, “Holler: 31 Days of Columbus Black Art”. Woods was named the first-ever “Face of Columbus” by Columbus Alive. He is the 2022 winner of the Press Club of Cleveland’s Ohio Excellence in Journalism award for Best in Ohio Essay Writing, and was awarded “Best Columnist in Ohio” in 2023 by the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists. He is the co-founder of the Writers’ Block Poetry Night. In 2020 he won an Ohio Valley Regional Emmy Award for contributions to A House That Cannot Fail. In 2006 became the first poet to ever complete a 24-hour solo poetry reading; a feat he bested seven more times without repeating a single poem.
Donte Woods-Spikes
Donte Woods-Spikes began working with youth in the Near Eastside of Columbus Ohio in 2011.
His first youth project, A Talk With Our Sons consisted of youtube video interviews with young
Black male youth and life experiences within the city. As the project gained recognition,
Woods-Spikes was selected to give a TEDxColumbus Talk titled Young Black Men Not Left Out
Again.
Woods-Spikes also mentors young children. He created a documentary titled Donte &
Day’Mariah, which highlighted his journey mentoring a young Black girl and the dynamics and
benefits of cross gendered mentorship.
Woods-Spikes worked at a community center then transitioned into the columbus city schools
as a teachers aid for 3 years. 1 of those years taking place during the COVID-19 pandemic
which inspired him to write his book So. Long. Unfinished Good-byes with the Children of
COVID-19. His time is now devoted to professional development and contract work with schools
to create diverse inclusive environments for all children.
Jennifer Wortman
Jennifer Wortman is the author of the story collection This. This. This. Is. Love. Love. Love (Split Lip Press, 2019). Her fiction, essays, and poetry appear in TriQuarterly, Copper Nickel, Glimmer Train, Electric Literature, Brevity, Hobart, North American Review, Juked, and elsewhere. A native of Gambier, Ohio, she currently lives with her family in Colorado, where she serves as associate fiction editor for Colorado Review and teaches at Lighthouse Writers Workshop.
Tony Wright
Tony Wright is the author of Things Aren’t Right: The Disappearance of the Yuba County Five. He’s also the author of four comic books and a graphic novel. Tony is an archivist, father, husband, and a lost soul of rock and roll. When he is not writing, he is spending time with his family or enjoying a trip to the library. Tony has been featured as a Yuba County Five case expert on the Mopac Audio podcast Yuba County Five, the Motor Trend TV show Auto/Biography: Cold Case, and the hit Netflix series Files of the Unexplained.
Robin Yocum
- A Perfect Shot (2018 – Seventh Street Books)
- A Welcome Murder (2017 - Seventh Street Books)
- A Brilliant Death (2016 - Seventh Street Books);
- The Essay (2012 - Arcade Publishing); and
- Favorite Sons (2011 - Arcade Publishing)
Robin Yocum is known for his fiction set in the Ohio River Valley.
His most recent novel, The Sacrifice of Lester Yates, was released in April of 2021 by Arcade CrimeWise, an imprint of Arcade Publishing.
He is the author of five additional works of fiction:
- A Perfect Shot (2018 – Seventh Street Books)
- A Welcome Murder (2017 – Seventh Street Books)
- A Brilliant Death (2016 – Seventh Street Books);
- The Essay (2012 – Arcade Publishing); and
- Favorite Sons (2011 – Arcade Publishing)
Favorite Sons was named the 2011 Book of the Year for Mystery/Suspense by USA Book News. A Brilliant Death was a Barnes & Noble No. 1 bestseller and a finalist for both the 2017 Edgar Award and the Silver Falchion Award for best adult mystery.
He also has written two works of non-fiction: Dead Before Deadline . . . and Other Tales from the Police Beat (2004 – University of Akron Press); and Insured for Murder (1992 – Prometheus Books), which he co-authored with Cathy Candisky.
Yocum joined the Columbus Dispatch in 1980. He worked at the paper for 11 years, including six years as the senior reporter on the investigative desk. He won more than 30 local, state and national journalism awards in categories ranging from investigative reporting to feature writing. Before joining the investigative team, he covered the police beat for four years, which was the basis for his book, Dead Before Deadline.
Prior to joining the Dispatch, Yocum was the associate sports editor of the Martins Ferry, Ohio, Times Leader, and a reporter for the Lancaster, Ohio, Eagle-Gazette.
He is the principle at Yocum Communications, a public relations and marketing consulting firm in Galena, Ohio, which he founded in 2001.
Yocum grew up in the Ohio River village of Brilliant, Ohio.
He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University.
John Young
When he was eight years old, John Young told his mother he wanted to be a scientist or a clown. So he spent most of his career in advertising, of course. Along the way, this native Hoosier graduated from Indiana University and scooped up an MFA from Emerson College in Boston. He also taught English at the high school and college levels.
He lives with his wife and two kids in Cincinnati. WHEN THE COIN IS IN THE AIR is his first novel.
Annie Zaleski
Annie Zaleski is the New York Times bestselling author of Taylor Swift: The Stories Behind the Songs. The Cleveland-based journalist has also written multiple other books, including This Is Christmas, Song by Song: The Stories Behind 100 Holiday Hits and We Found Love, Song by Song: The Stories Behind 100 Romantic Hits, a volume on Duran Duran’s Rio in the prestigious 33 1/3 book series, and illustrated biographies of Lady Gaga, Harry Styles, and Pink. Her work has appeared in dozens of publications, including NPR Music, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Salon, Billboard, Classic Pop, and Record Collector.
Felicia Zamora
Felicia Zamora is a poet, educator, and editor currently living in OH. She is the author of six books of poetry including: I Always Carry My Bones, winner of the 2020 Iowa Poetry Prize released from the University of Iowa Press in April 2021, Quotient forthcoming from Tinderbox Editions in 2022, Body of Render, winner of the 2018 Benjamin Saltman Award from Red Hen Press (2020), Instrument of Gaps (Slope Editions, 2018), & in Open, Marvel (Parlor Press, 2018), and Of Form & Gather, winner of the 2016 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize (University of Notre Dame Press). She’s received fellowships and residencies from CantoMundo, Ragdale Foundation, PLAYA, Moth Magazine, and Noepe Center at Martha’s Vineyard, authored two chapbooks, won the 2020 C.P. Cavafy Prize, the 2019 Wabash Prize for Poetry and the 2015 Tomaž Šalamun Prize, and was the 2017 Poet Laureate of Fort Collins, CO. Her poems and essays are found or forthcoming in AGNI, Alaska Quarterly Review, Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, American Poetry Review, Boston Review online, Georgia Review, Guernica, Literary Hub, Missouri Review Poem-of-the-Week, Orion, Poetry Magazine, Poetry Daily, Poetry International, Prairie Schooner, The Nation, and others. She is an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Cincinnati and is the associate poetry editor for the Colorado Review.
Visit her website at: https://www.feliciazamora.com/
Scott A. Zanon
Scott Zanon is the author of two gardening books, Desirable Trees for the Midwest and his most recent, Landscaping with Trees in the Midwest. An accomplished and long-time gardener, he holds a Bachelor of Science degree in both Agronomy (turfgrass science) and Horticulture (landscape horticulture) from The Ohio State University.
Read MoreScott Zanon is the author of two gardening books, Desirable Trees for the Midwest and his most recent, Landscaping with Trees in the Midwest. An accomplished and long-time gardener, he holds a Bachelor of Science degree in both Agronomy (turfgrass science) and Horticulture (landscape horticulture) from The Ohio State University.