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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Anna Soter
Anna Soter is Professor Emeritus at The Ohio State University, and Adjunct Professor at CCAD, and at Self-Design Graduate Institute (Washington State). Her academic specializations are applied linguistics, contrastive rhetoric, literary theory applications to young adult literature, and the role of language as a field of energy. She is founder of The Hospital Poets (USA and Australia), a regular feature in The Ohio State University’s Humanism in Medicine program. She is also faculty submissions editor of Ether Arts, the OSU College of Medicine’s Literary and Visual Annual Arts Magazine. Anna continues to serve as co-convener (with Fred Andrle and Charlene Fix) of The Hospital Poets. In 2014, she received the OSU Wexner Medical Center William Osler M.D. Award for her work and commitment to Medicine and the Arts since its 2009 inauguration, and the OSU Wexner Medical Center Medicine and the Arts Certificate of Recognition for exemplary contributions in bringing the arts into the lives of medical staff, patients and families.
Anna has been a frequent featured reader in a variety of Columbus and state poetry venues for many years. She has primarily published scholarly books and articles and individual poems. Breathing Spaces is her first poetry collection.
https://ehe.osu.edu/news/listing/emeritus-academy-recognizes-lifelong-scholars
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XjfBZh0AAAAJ&hl=en
Amy Spears
Amy Spears (she/her) graduated from Denison University with a degree in cinema and creative writing. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, where she is in her second decade as a skater with Ohio Roller Derby. She spent several years active in the leadership of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association and has given presentations, workshops and talks about the sport at Pecha Kecha Columbus, the Roller Derby World Summit, and Rollercon. Her digital essay (with Julie Driscoll) “Worlds Collide! facebook, family & George Costanza” was published in Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion, and her prose and poetry have appeared in Columbus Alive, Lynx Eye, and Wine X. A self-described “collector of hobbies,” she’ll try just about anything once.
Emily Spencer
Emily Spencer is the author of East Walnut Hills, winner of the Zone 3 Press Book Award. Her poetry has appeared in the Kenyon Review, Poetry, and elsewhere. She graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Spencer is an assistant professor at Miami University.
Andrew Speno
Andrew Speno is a teacher and the author of “The Great American Foot Race,” as well as this year’s “The Many Lives of Eddie Rickenbacker.” He enjoys cooking, attending live music and theater performances, and playing Go. He lives with his family in Cincinnati.
Tricia Springstubb
Tricia Springstubb is the award-winning author of fiction for readers of all ages- picture books, chapter books, middle grade and early young adult novels. Her newest book, How To Tell A True Story, is a suspenseful story about the slippery nature of truth, especially in the light of social media. She lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and is a frequent speaker at schools, libraries and conferences. Visit her online at triciaspringstubb.com
Kezia Sproat
Kezia Sproat, a native of Chillicothe, raised her family in Columbus, teaching English and Comparative Literature at Ohio State, where her 1975 dissertation on Shakespeare immediately won a national competition. A member of Women’s Poetry Workshop for 25 years, she co-founded the Community Film Association in 1978, and coordinated a “Festival of Dionysus” poetry competition in City Council Chambers at the 1987 Greater Columbus Arts Festival. Dr. Sproat was editor at OSU Center for Human Resource Research 1978-1985; writer/editor, Creative Services at Abbott Labs 1987-1990; and coordinator, SCOPS South Central Ohio Preservation Society, 1993-2013.
In 1987 Dr. Sproat began a serious study of nonviolence and founded Highbank Farm Peace Education Center in 1994. Her response to 9/11, “A Short Course in Nonviolence,” won recognition from Morehouse College and membership in the Board of Sponsors of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Chapel in Atlanta. A handbook, Beginning Nonviolence, appeared in 2013.
Tuwyn, her first book of poetry, was written during her Columbus years. In 1998 she restored her childhood home, where she lives in Chillicothe. A second poetry collection, Eh Tih Zwell, is set to release December 2019. Also in the pipeline are her collected essays, Sisterhood in Shakespeare.
Jyotsna Sreenivasan
Jyotsna Sreenivasan is the author of the short story collection These Americans and the novel And Laughter Fell From the Sky. Both are about Indian Americans. She was selected as a Fiction Fellow for the 2021 Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Her short stories have been published in literary magazines and anthologies. She received an Artist Fellowship Grant from the Washington, DC Commission on the Arts. She was born and raised in Ohio. Her parents are immigrants from India. For information about Jyotsna as well as other writers who are children of immigrants, please see http://www.SecondGenStories.com.
Phil Stamper
Phil Stamper is the bestselling author of Golden Boys, The Gravity of Us, and other queer books for kids and teens. His stories are packed with queer joy, and his characters are often too ambitious for their own good. Born and raised in a rural village near Dayton, Ohio, he now lives in New York City with his husband and their daughter.
Linda Stanek
Linda Stanek has a passion for teaching, animals, and conservation. Her book, Cheetah Dreams (Arbordale Publishing), released in fall of 2018. Other books include award-winning Once Upon an Elephant (Arbordale Publishing) Night Creepers (Arbordale Publishing), Beco’s Big Year: A Baby Elephant Turns One, (Columbus Zoo and Aquarium), and more. She is the author of Sheeba and the Private Detectives (AZ Corp, 2018) a leveled comic book series that teaches STEM concepts to children in Pakistan. She is a co-author of college textbook Cheetahs: Biodiversity of the World: Conservation from Genes to Landscapes (Academic Press, 2017). In addition to winning the Children’s Choice Book Award’s 3rd-4th grade Book of the Year, Linda’s books have been nominated for a number of other awards, and have been placed on state reading lists. Her book Once Upon an Elephant is a 2019-2020 Choose to Read Ohio title. She is a frequent visitor in schools, and has spoken at zoos and at conferences for museum personnel, librarians, teachers, and writers. In 2019, Linda will work with the Columbus Zoo and The Ohio State University on a scientific study to measure the impact of authors, literature, and ambassador cheetahs in schools.
Sarah Stankorb
Sarah Stankorb is a journalist, essayist, and the author of Disobedient Women. She was born near Youngstown, Ohio, and often found escape in books. She studied world religions and philosophy at Westminster College, a place surrounded by rolling Pennsylvania farm country. A chance to study abroad in Northern Ireland, then Israel further opened her eyes to how faith (and conflict) can shape people’s everyday existence. She earned her master’s degree from University of Chicago’s Divinity School, where she studied ethics and South Asian religion and history. Hundreds of her pieces have been featured in publications, including: VICE, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Republic, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, and others. Her beat spans religion, politics, gender, and power, but is informed by questions of basic morality. She’s more fun than all this sounds. Sarah lives in Ohio with her husband and two children, and she writes a few times a month about the quirks of American faith at In Polite Company via Substack.