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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David Rickert
David Rickert grew up in Columbus, Ohio surrounded by stacks of MAD Magazines, Calvin and Hobbes collections, and Walt Disney comics. He spent most of his free time learning about sable hair brushes, non-repro blue pencils, and Bristol boards so he could pursue a career drawing a comic strip. He went to Ohio State University instead to pursue a degree in education, but never gave up on the dream! He drew a daily strip in The Lantern (OSU’s school newspaper) for most of his college years. After earning a teaching degree and working a few years in the classroom, the itch to create comics resurfaced. He headed back to the drawing board (literally) to create educational comics, selling them on the Teachers Pay Teachers marketplace. Educators from around the world have enthusiastically embraced his comics as an effective way to teach difficult language arts concepts, especially with reluctant readers and English language learners. When he’s not drawing comics, David likes to do yoga, play guitar, and read.
Conlee Ricketts
Conlee Ricketts has been an educator for over 30 years with her BSEd in Secondary Mathematics Education from The Ohio State University, and her MEd in Administration/Teacher Leader from Wright State University. Conlee’s honesty and humor helps you examine fears and vulnerabilities in a safe lighthearted way. Her life has been about surviving awkward social situations and problem solving. She is an expert at finding options, organizing a plan, and quieting over-active mind chatter long enough to calm the chaos of an incredibly human and messy life. She lives in Bexley, Ohio with her daughter, father, and a myriad of pets and their associated dirt.
Debbie Rigaud
Debbie Rigaud is a New York Times bestselling co-author of the Hope series (with Alyssa Milano) and The Sister Switch (with Sarah Mlynowski). Her notable young adult novels A Girl’s Guide to Love & Magic and Simone Breaks All the Rules are colored with sights and sounds of metro NYC, where she was born and raised. Debbie now lives with her husband and children in Columbus, Ohio, where she records her impressions of Midwestern life onto new pages. You can visit her at DebbieRigaud.com or on Instagram @FroAndABow.
James Alan Riley
James Alan Riley is an American poet whose work has appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, two Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowships from the Kentucky Arts Council, and an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council. Riley received his Ph.D. from Ohio University. He is a Professor of English at the University of Pikeville in Pikeville, KY.
Sandra Rivers-Gill
A Native Ohioan, Sandra Rivers-Gill is a poet, teaching artist, and performer. Her poetry has garnered numerous awards, and has been featured in journals and anthologies. She is a member of the Ohio Poetry Association and has participated in events such as Lit Youngstown Festival, Poetry Out Loud, Spoken & Heard, and the Toledo Arts Commission. She is editor of Dopeless Hope Fiends, a limited-addition anthology of poems penned by women recovering from substance and alcohol abuse published by The Radio Room Press (2018). As We Cover Ourselves With Light is her debut chapbook published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions (2023).
Merry Robert
Robert W. Merry is the author of Where They Stand; A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk; Sands of Empire; and Taking on the World. A longtime Washington journalist, commentator, and publishing executive, he covered government and politics for The Wall Street Journal for a decade and spent twenty-two years as an executive at Congressional Quarterly Inc., including twelve years as CEO. This is his fifth book. Merry lives with his wife in Langley, WA, and Washington, DC.
Jim Roberts
Jim Roberts grew up in rural East Texas. After college, he lived and worked briefly in Houston before moving to Cincinnati, Ohio in the early 1980s to pursue a business career. Now a full-time writer, he and his wife, the artist Donna Berry Roberts, split their time between Ohio and Texas, depending on whim, changes in the weather, or the beckoning of distant haints. His fiction has appeared in Prime Number Magazine, Rappahannock Review, Snake Nation Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, and The Arlington Literary Journal (ArLiJo). His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and twice named to the finalist list for the Screencraft Cinematic Short Story Award. Of Fathers & Gods is his first book.
Nicole Robinson
Nicole Robinson’s poems have appeared in Columbia Journal, The Fourth River, Great River Review, The Louisville Review, Spillway, Tahoma Literary Review, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of an Individual Excellence Award for poetry from the Ohio Arts Council and the Humanities Award from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Currently serving as the narrative medicine coordinator at Akron Children’s Hospital, she resides in Ohio. Learn more: https://www.nicolerobinsonpoetry.com/
Margaret Rogerson
David Rohr
Born and raised in Ohio, David Rohr spent his working career in the state until the
age of 29. Even though he’s been a resident of other states since then—New York and
Tennessee—David remains a frequent Buckeye State visitor, as most of his immediate
family still resides there. He is an enthusiastic fan of Ohio State Buckeye football as
well as of many other Ohio college and professional sports teams.
His advertising and marketing communications career includes writing, creative
direction, and management for a number of advertising agencies and
communications firms. He has served clients ranging from those on the Fortune 500
to smaller companies and human services organizations. This career, as David likes to
point out, enabled him to write everything from rap songs about pastries to fulllength
books promoting multi-million dollar printing equipment. He is also an
entrepreneur, teacher, and father of three.
David is a proud graduate of Ottawa Hills High School (Toledo). In addition, he has a
B.S. in Journalism from Bowling Green State University, an M.S. in Management and
an M.A. in Liberal Studies, both from Nazareth College of Rochester plus a graduate
certificate from Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York.