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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Deni Naffziger
Deni Naffziger is the author of Desire to Stay, poems (Stockport Flats Press, 2014), Strange Bodies, poems (Shadelandhouse Modern Press, 2023), and she co-authored Revenants: A Story of Many Lives, which was commissioned by the Houston-Hardin school district and supported with an Ohio Arts Council special projects grant. She edited Riverwind literary magazine, a national publication out of Hocking College, from 1986 – 2003. Naffziger, a Fulbright Scholar, is a retired professor (Hocking College, Ohio University). She currently serves as poet-in-residence at the Passion Works Collaborative Arts Studio in Athens, Ohio.
Dara Naraghi
Dara Naraghi was born in Iran and educated in the United States. His graphic novel trilogy Persia Blues has been praised by Publishers Weekly and the Midwest Book Review, has been nominated for awards by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), and won a S.P.A.C.E. Prize for best graphic novel. His other notable graphic novels include the Terminator Salvation official movie prequel, and Witch & Wizard: Battle for Shadowland (both New York Times Bestsellers), as well as works for Image Comics, IDW Publishing, Dark Horse, and DC Comics. Dara is also a founding member of the comic book writers/artists collective known as PANEL, with whom he has produced 20 volumes of their comics anthology. Dara lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife, daughter, and the world’s sweetest hound dog. Visit him online at http://www.daranaraghi.com/
Samuel Narh
Samuel Narh is an award-winning children’s book author. His books, A Kite for Melia and Milko, were created with co-author Freda Narh. He enjoys painting pictures with words using his stories, which are meant to touch and reach people across the world. Learn more at: https://www.samuelnarh.com/
Paula Johnson Neal
Paula Johnson Neal is a graduate of The Ohio State University with a degree in early childhood development. Prior to becoming a published children’s author in 2019, she was a preschool administrator for 25 years. Based on her direct observation of young children exhibiting actual or precursors behaviors to bullying, Paula has set out on a mission to create fun and educational children’s books to teach kindness and self-regulatory skills. Paula’s first award winning book is titled I’M GONNA HAVE A GOOD DAY! The sequel, BREATHE, GABBY, BREATHE is a roller coaster of BIG emotions and usage of a breathing strategy to grow the main character and her readers. To learn more about Paula and her books, please visit her website at http://www.PaulaJohnsonNeal.com.
Elizabeth Neal
Elizabeth Neal is a writer, editor, and digital strategist who lives in Columbus, OH, with her husband, daughter, and two rescue mutts.
Marilyn Nelson
Marilyn Nelson is the author of many award-winning books, including Carver: A Life in Poems, which was a National Book Award finalist, a Newbery Honor Book, and a Coretta Scott King Honor Book and received the Flora Stieglitz Straus Award and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award. She is also the author of A Wreath for Emmett Till, which garnered the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, a Coretta Scott King Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor. She lives in Connecticut. https://marilyn-nelson.com/
Michael Neno
Columbus native Michael Neno has been writing, drawing, and publishing comic books, coloring books, zines, and minicomics for over thirty-five years. Michael has written (and also drawn) for Cracked Magazine, Caliber Comics, Ohio’s Amazing Montage Press, Silver Comics, Columbus’ Weinland Park Stories anthology, contributed to a comics anthology on Washington, D.C. history, ReDistricted, written and drawn projects for Columbus’ Wild Goose Creative, and written about Columbus history in The Columbus Scribbler.
Among the books and publications he’s published are two issues of The Signifiers, the minicomics Michael Neno’s Dream, Michael Neno’s Life-Changing Guide to Decluttering Your Comic Book Collection, What to Do When Approached by a Creepy Clown and The Toy Box. He’s also written two issues of the music review zine, Abba Zab and wrote/published a set of ten public domain mashup microcomics during the pandemic.
Along with creating graphic designs for concert posters, album covers, illustrating magazines, children’s books and freelance lettering, penciling, inking and coloring for various publishers,
he also regularly writes reviews for the website: Film Review Central.
Among the awards he has won are the Governor’s Award of Excellence in 1980 for the painting The Visit and a 2022 SPACE (Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo) Lifetime Achievement Award. He also received a Xeric Grant from Peter Laird (co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) for the publication of his comic book Reactionary Tales in 2001. The book featured an introduction written and drawn by Ohio-born cartoonist Paul Pope (Batman Year 100).
Jay Nesbit
Jay grew up in University Heights, Ohio, and has also lived in Detroit, Michigan and North Padre Island, Texas. He received a pharmacy degree from The Ohio State University, and an MBA from Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi. He is married with two adult children and two grandchildren. Jay was Clinical Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice for Northeast Ohio Medical University. An entrepreneur, he owned a pharmacy, a travel magazine, and a trophy & awards business. He has also been a real estate investor, and owns several investment homes and condominiums. Jay currently works full-time as a content creator and author, and part-time as a behavioral health pharmacist. Jay lives in Cleveland, and in St. Petersburg, Florida, during the winter months. During his leisure time, you can find Jay exploring the latest arrivals at local libraries and bookstores. He also enjoys savoring a Cleveland Orchestra concert at Severance Hall, or immersing himself in new exhibits at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Jay, alongside his wife Joyce, enjoys attending weekly summer programs at Chautauqua Institution in southwestern New York state.
Megan Neville
Megan Neville is a writer and educator based in Cleveland, Ohio. Her work has appeared in West Branch, Pleiades, Poets.org, Wildness, McSweeney’s, and elsewhere. She was the winner of the 2021 Trio award and the 2019 Wick Poetry Center Contest for Peace & Transformation, and has been a finalist or semifinalist for the Write Bloody Book Contest, the Akron Poetry Prize, the Frost Place Chapbook Contest, the Tupelo Press Sunken Garden Chapbook Contest, the YesYes Books 2020 Open Reading Period, and others. In 2021 received a Best of the Net nomination and two nominations for the Pushcart Prize. Her full-length poetry collection The Fallow is available from Trio House Press. Megan is also an editorial assistant for Split Lip Magazine. Follow her on Twitter @MegNev. Learn more at: https://megannevillepoetry.com/