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.
Julie Zickefoose
Writer/artist Julie Zickefoose, author of Baby Birds: An Artist Looks Into the Nest (2016), The Bluebird Effect (2012), and Letters from Eden (2006), is a Contributing Editor to Bird Watcher’s Digest. Her blog, Julie Zickefoose on Blogspot, entertains more than 32,000 visitors each month. A five-year run as a commentator on NPR’s “All Things Considered” sharpened her storytelling skills. Her writing style, while breezy and entertaining, packs a high information content, and great empathy and understanding of the mental and emotional capabilities of animals and birds. Some say that, after reading her books, they see birds in an entirely different light. Julie loves to introduce people to birdwatching, and now leads natural history excursions abroad. She travels to speak for nature festivals, clubs and horticultural societies, and lives with her family on an 80-acre sanctuary in Appalachian Ohio. Indigo Hill has hosted 194 bird species and 78 species of butterflies as of 2016.
Katherine Ziff
Katherine Ziff developed ArtBreak while working as an Ohio-licensed professional school counselor. At present she teaches in the graduate online counseling program at Wake Forest University. She also maintains a child therapy practice in Athens, Ohio. Ziff holds a doctorate in counselor education from Ohio University. She is also an exhibiting artist.
Donald Zing
I self published the first story “The Journey Home” in 2014 and finished two subsequent stories for the series in 2021. My style of writing is more like a screenplay compared to traditional novels and I am a musician, so I knew the only way to properly tell my stories was through audiobook form with added sound effects and original music.
D.E. Zuccone
Dominic Zuccone was born in Youngstown Ohio. Graduated Xavier University B.A. in Theology and Education. Graduated Vermont College of Fine Arts. He has worked in Alternative Education in Kentucky and Texas and been a private Educational Consultant for over twenty-five years. He has professionally presented on Visual Perception, Spectral Filters, Suggestopedia, Reading Disabilities, Affective Classroom Interventions and Dyslexia. D E Zuccone has published poetry in Borderlands, Water Stone, International Review of Poetry, Southern Indiana Review, Schuylkill Review, Hurricane Review, Big River, Apalachee Review, Deep Water Literary Review, South Florida Poetry Review, and Garden Box. My work has been in anthologies from Round Top, Taos Artists, Words& Art, Mutabulis Press, and Big Poetry Review. I curated the on-line poetry discussion Ex Libris and was on the Board of Directors for Houston’s “Public Poetry”. I have been a featured reader in Houston, Brooklyn, Taos, Los Angeles, and a frequent reader at Archway Gallery and Words & Art at Rice University and the Menil Museum.
Neil Zurcher
Neil Zurcher originated “One Tank Trips” for Channel 8 in Cleveland in 1980, and he has been reporting on Ohio travel ever since. Called “One of the most respected and knowledgeable travel writers in the state” by former Ohio governor George Voinovich, Zurcher was inducted into the Ohio Broadcasters Hall of Fame and received their Living Legacy Award in 2007. He has also received the Distinguished Service award from the Society of Professional Journalism and the Silver Circle award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He has written five books about Ohio, including “Ohio Oddities” and “Strange Tales from Ohio.”