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): 2016
Yolonda Tonette Sanders
Ohio native Yolonda Tonette Sanders is an Essence magazine bestselling author with six novels to her credit, including Shadow of Death. She is also the founder and CEO of Yo Productions, LLC, a theatrical entertainment and literary services company that expanded its repertoire in 2015 to include publishing. A graduate of Capital University and later The Ohio State University, Yolonda once worked for the Ohio Attorney General’s Office until she quit in 2004 to focus more on writing. It’s a move that she has never regretted. As a writer, Yolonda enjoys the challenge of developing and completing projects that interest and inspire readers. As a speaker, she has been invited to address audiences across the country regarding various topics and appreciates the opportunities she has to connect with people from all walks of life. As a business owner, Yolonda seeks to help other writers develop and perfect their works. In addition to writing, Yolonda likes watching movies, exercising, and spending time with her family. Her favorite people on earth are her husband, David, and her two teenage children, Tre and Tia.
John Scalzi
John Scalzi has written nearly all of his science fiction from a home office in Bradford, Ohio, where he can look out the window and see Amish buggies clopping by. His first published novel, 2005’s “Old Man’s War,” was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Novel and helped him win the John W. Campbell/Astounding Award for Best New Writer. Scalzi would go on to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2013 for his New York Times bestselling novel Redshirts. His most recent novel, The Kaiju Preservation Society, is a 2023 Alex Award recipient and currently optioned for television. Scalzi also writes for the Emmy Award-winning television series Love Death + Robots, where Ohio features prominently in his episode “When the Yogurt Took Over.” In 2016, Scalzi’s work earned him the Governor’s Award for Arts in Ohio. https://whatever.scalzi.com/
Cathy Seckman
Cathy Hester Seckman is a lifelong resident of East Liverpool, Ohio, and a graduate of East Liverpool City High School and West Liberty State College (now University). She is a writer, indexer, speaker, and dental hygienist.
Arcadia Publishing released her book, East Liverpool, an Images of America title. Seckman is also the author of Weirdo World, a young adult fantasy novel. She is an indie co-author of Bad Moon Rising, a murder mystery set between Woodstock and the Kent State shootings, and an anthology, H2O Mysteries. Her short fiction has been published in several magazines and she has written hundreds of magazine articles and thousands of newspaper articles.
As a back-of-the-book indexer, she has also written more than 130 indexes, mostly for textbooks, on a wide range of topics from dentistry to terrorism to literary criticism.
Margie Shaheed
Margie Shaheed is a community poet, writer and teaching artist. She is the author of three chapbooks, Mosaic, Onomonopoeia, and Playground. She is currently completing a non-fiction book, Tongue Shakers: Interviews and Narratives on Speaking Mother Tongue in a Multicultural Society.
Terri-Lynne Smiles
Possessing “a native talent for imaginative storytelling” (Midwest Book Review) and being “skilled at crafting a nuanced page turner” (The Kirkus Review), Terri-Lynne Smiles creates novels filled with realistic characters, a quick pace, and a puzzle for the readers and characters to chew on. Her writing is diverse, ranging from The Rothston Series (2012-2016), a set of young adult/new adult urban fantasy novels, to Mirror Protocol (2016), a psychological murder mystery without a murder, to the sci-fi thriller Sarandipity (in development), set in a future in which sources of strife have been banned on Earth and humankind is spread across the stars.
Raised in a family of educators, Terri is passionate not only about writing but also teaching the craft. While she speaks on and teaches a wide variety of topics, her favorites include How to Develop a Plot; Crafting Believable Heroes and Villains; Pacing and Tension; and Race in Non-Racial Fiction. She has appeared at book clubs, participated in panels across the country, and has taught workshops at a variety of venues such as the Thurber House, the Upper Arlington Public Library, and the creative writing conference Imaginarium.
Terri-Lynne is committed to the charitable sector, serving as board chair for the Ohio Association of Nonprofit Organizations as well as volunteering with numerous community organizations.
For more information or to contact Terri-Lynne, see her website at http://www.terrilynnesmiles.com.
Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith is the award-winning author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Good Bones, The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, Lamp of the Body, and the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change. A 2011 recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Smith has also received several Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, two Academy of American Poets Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Sustainable Arts Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has been widely published, appearing in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Nation, The Best American Poetry, and more. Maggie Smith’s next book, Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life, is forthcoming from Atria/Simon & Schuster on April 1, 2025. You can follow her on social media @MaggieSmithPoet and learn more at https://maggiesmithpoet.com/
Lucy A. Snyder
Lucy A. Snyder is the author of 15 books and over 100 published short stories. Her most recent titles are the apocalyptic horror novel Sister, Maiden, Monster and the collection Halloween Season. She lives near Columbus, Ohio with a jungle of houseplants, a clowder of cats, and an insomnia of housemates. You can learn more about her at http://www.lucysnyder.com and you can follow her on Twitter at @LucyASnyder.
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
Del Sroufe
Del’s cooking career began when he was just eight years old; creating dishes from whatever he could find in his father’s kitchen. By age of thirteen he was flaunting his culinary talents by preparing family dinners, much to his mother’s delight. After high school Del shelved his love for the kitchen and sold men’s clothing while he attended The Ohio State University School of Business. Selling suits and ties did not polish Del’s wing tipped shoes so he set out to pursue his passion, cooking. He landed a position at one of Columbus, Ohio’s premier vegetarian restaurants, The King Avenue Coffeehouse, and began to establish himself as a leader in the industry.
In 1997 Del opened his own bakery, Del’s Bread, where he created, prepared and served delicious vegan pastries, breads, potpies, calzones, smoothies and other sorted delicacies to the palate of his Columbus based clientele. In 2001, Del transitioned from his bakery business to start a vegan Personal Chef Service, preparing eclectic plant-based cuisine to his already captivated audience. During this time, he developed what became a very popular cooking class series, sharing many of the delicious recipes he had created over the years with his students. In 2006, Del joined Wellness Forum Foods as Executive Chef, where today he continues the tradition of delivering great tasting plant-based meals to clients locally and throughout the continental United States. Del continues to teach cooking and health classes and is a keynote speaker at local venues and events around the country.
Del is the author of Forks over Knives: the Cookbook, on the New York Bestseller list for more than 30 weeks; Better than Vegan, the story of his struggle with weight loss and gain, and how he managed to lose over 200 pounds on a low fat, plant based diet, and The China Study Quick and Easy Cookbook.
Sherry Stanforth
Sherry Cook Stanforth, a native of Clermont County, Ohio, grew up in a circle of traditional Appalachian musicians who played dulcimers, guitars, fiddles, banjos and mandolins late into the night. Her singing, flute, tin whistle and harmonica styles were inspired by these old time jammers of her childhood. Over the years, she has performed regionally with Sunset Dawn and Tellico, a three-generation family band named for her father’s Tellico Plains Cherokee ancestry. “Of all the venues I play, the Fraley Festival of Traditional Music at Carter Caves, Kentucky, and my own back porch overlooking the Ohio River bring the most joy.”
As founder and director of Thomas More College’s Creative Writing Vision Program Sherry promotes regional authors, providing high-energy, interactive literary arts events for under-served populations in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky community. She teaches fiction, poetry, environmental and ethnic literature, and folklore, and often collaborates with TMC students to provide school and public events that blend creative writing with music and the natural world. Currently, she serves as co-editor for Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, the literary journal of the Southern Appalachian Writers Cooperative, and as faculty adviser for Words, the campus literary magazine.
Drone String, her first full poetry collection, was nominated for a 2016 Pushcart Prize. Her other writing appears in various journals, anthologies, and NCTE books. She enjoys keeping bees, hiking mountains, and studying native plants. With her husband, David, she raises four children, two trusty hound dogs and a garden.