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.
Marianne Chan
Marianne Chan grew up in Stuttgart, Germany, and Lansing, Michigan. After she earned her B.A. in English from Michigan State University, she went on to study poetry at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she earned her MFA. Marianne is the author of All Heathens, which was the winner of the 2021 GLCA New Writers Award in Poetry and the 2021 Ohioana Book Award in Poetry. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, New England Review, Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. Between 2017-2019, she served as poetry editor for Split Lip Magazine.She lives in Cincinnati with her partner, Clancy, and her cat, Bella. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in English & Creative Writing at the University of Cincinnati and serves as the Assistant Poetry Editor at Acre Books.
Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar
Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar is an Indian American writer. Born to a middle-class family in India, she later migrated to the USA with her husband and son. She currently lives in the suburbs of Ohio. She is a technologist by profession and a writer by passion. Her stories and poems have appeared in numerous publications, print and online. Her work has been selected for Best Small Fictions 2022. She won first place in ELJ Micro Creative Non-Fiction Prize, placed in the Strands International Flash Fiction Festival. and is the runner-up for the Chestnut Review Chapbook Contest. Her stories have been shortlisted in the Bath Flash Fiction Awards and SmokeLong Micro Competition. She is currently a Prose Editor at Janus Literary and a Submissions Editor at SmokeLong Quarterly. Her debut flash fiction collection “Morsels of Purple” was released in 2021. More at https://saraspunyfingers.com. Reach her @PunyFingers
e.E. Charlton-Trujillo
Described as “a force of nature” by Kirkus Reviews, author, filmmaker and youth literacy activist e.E. Charlton-Trujillo has written several books for teens and children, most notably the ALA Winning and Choose to Read Ohio series Fat Angie. Their celebrated co-authored picture books with NYT Bestseller Pat Zietlow Miller include: Lupe Lopez: Rock Star Rules, Lupe Lopez: Reading Rock Star, and A Girl Can Build Anything. Trujillo’s short fiction appeared in the Read Across America selection Living Beyond Borders: Growing Up Mexican In America and the lauded anthology The Collectors edited by A.S. King. They are the co-founder of the literacy nonprofit Never Counted Out and a Madriana with Las Musas.
Julie Chase
Julie Chase is a mystery-loving pet enthusiast who hopes to make readers smile. She lives in rural Ohio with her husband and three small children. Julie is a member of the International Thriller Writers (ITW) and Sisters in Crime (SinC). She is represented by Jill Marsal of Marsal Lyons Literary Agency. Julie also writes as Julie Anne Lindsey.
Craig M. Chavis , Jr.
Craig M. Chavis Jr. is an award-winning author and interdisciplinary coach on a mission to help entrepreneurs discover, embrace, and transform their purpose into profits. At the core of Craig’s coaching philosophy lies the mantra – Become the Entrepreneur of Your Life. Through this lens, he coaches through an alternative and holistic perspective cultivated from over a decade of first-hand experience launching and managing multiple businesses in Ghana, Costa Rica, Peru, and the United States of America. He is a serial entrepreneur, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, a former division-1 collegiate athlete, and received his BSBA from Samford University and MBA from the University of Tampa. Craig is also a super foodie, world traveler, lifelong learner, and currently resides in Columbus, OH.
Kara H.L. Chen
Kara H.L. Chen is a Taiwanese American writer who received her MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College. She is the author of LOVE & RESISTANCE (Quill Tree/Harper Collins, 2023) and ASKING FOR A FRIEND (Quill Tree/HarperCollins, 7/23/24). She grew up in Ohio but now lives with her husband and two daughters in Northern California. She can be found online at karahlchen.com.
Jeff Chenault
Jeff Chenault is an author, producer and music historian. His first book, published by The History Press, was Kahiki Supper Club: A Polynesian Paradise in Columbus, Ohio, co-written with David Meyers, Elise Meyers-Walker and Doug Motz. Jeff has also written for multiple publications, including Cool and Strange Music Magazine, Bachelor Pad Magazine, Tiki Magazine and Exotica Moderne. He is currently producing a series of rare Exotica music for Dionysus Records.
Ron Chernow
An honors graduate of Yale and Cambridge, Ron Chernow is one of the most distinguished commentators on politics, business, and finance in America today. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has hailed him as “one of the pre-eminent biographers of his generation” and Fortune magazine has dubbed him “America’s best business biographer.” His first book, The House of Morgan, won the National Book Award as the best nonfiction book of 1990 and is considered a modern classic. The Modern Library Board voted it one of the 100 best nonfiction books published in the twentieth century. His second book, The Warburgs, won the prestigious George S. Eccles Prize for the best business book of 1993 and was cited by the American Library Association as one of the year’s ten best works. In reviewing his 1997 collection of essays, The Death of the Banker, The New York Times called Mr. Chernow “as elegant an architect of monumental histories as we’ve seen in decades.” His 1998 biography of John D. Rockefeller, entitled Titan, was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award for biography and remained on The New York Times bestseller list for sixteen weeks. Both the Times and Time magazine voted it one of the ten best books of the year, while The Times of London praised it as “one of the great American biographies.”
Mr. Chernow’s much anticipated biography of Alexander Hamilton was published by The Penguin Press in April 2004 to extraordinary acclaim. The New York Times praised it as “moving and masterly…by far the best biography ever written about the man” while USA Today hailed it as “a must-read. Ron Chernow’s masterpiece.” Excerpted by Business Week and chosen as the main selection of both The Book-of-the-Month Club and the History Book Club, the book spent three months on the New York Times bestseller list and was the first recipient of the George Washington Book Prize for the year’s best book about the founding era. It was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award in biography.
In October 2010, The Penguin Press published Mr. Chernow’s long-awaited biography of George Washington to outstanding reviews. It was the main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club as well as the History and Military Book Clubs. Excerpted by the Smithsonian magazine, the book spent five weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. The Wall Street Journal named the book one of the year’s ten best and The New York Times included it among its notable books of 2010. It has been nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History. Writing in The New York Review of Books, Gordon Wood praised the work as “the best, most comprehensive, and most balanced single-volume biography of Washington ever written.” In March 2011, the New-York Historical Society gave the book the coveted American History Book Prize for the best book about American history published in 2010. The award also endowed Mr. Chernow with the honorary title of American Historian Laureate.
A frequent contributor to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Chernow is a familiar figure on national radio and television shows and has appeared in numerous documentaries. He lives in Brooklyn, New York and recently served as president of PEN American Center, the country’s pre-eminent organization of authors. In recent years, he has received honorary doctorates from Marymount Manhattan College, Hamilton College, and Long Island University.