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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Paul Many
Maybe it’s happened to you: Waking from troubled dreams, you find you’ve turned into a scaly, scary T. rex. No? Lucky. For this is exactly what happens to Gregory in my picture book, Dinomorphosis. And this on the very day of his big class presentation, no less! Gregory tries to make believe that nothing is wrong, blundering through with his clumsy, scaly body and voice the level of ROAR, until his classmates and an understanding teacher finally come to his rescue.
Paul Many wrote Dinomorphosisis for those of us who don’t have a good day every day and are sometimes surprised about who we see in the mirror. He’s the author of five previous children’s books, one of which won a Los Angeles Times’ Best Children’s Book of the Year, and has appeared on the NBC national Today show promoting another. His hardcover YA books have been reprinted in paper and translated into three languages including Danish (!). He has an MFA in creative writing and a chapbook of poems among other publications. His PhD dissertation, “The Effect of Advertising on Consumer Press Credibility” has sold two copies.
Jacqueline Marino
Jacqueline Marino teaches feature writing and other courses in the magazine sequence at Kent State University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Her nonfiction stories and essays have appeared in many publications including Cleveland Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, and River Teeth: A Journal of Narrative Nonfiction.
Stephen Markley
Stephen Markley is an author, screenwriter, and journalist. His previous books include the memoir “Publish This Book” and the travelogue “Tales of Iceland.” His short fiction, interviews, essays, and journalism can be found scattered across the internet.
Allison and Wayne Marks
English majors who met in a college Chaucer class, husband and wife Wayne and Allison Marks share a love for words and revel in a tale well-told. They enjoy spinning tales from the porch of their 100-year-old home in Akron, Ohio, where they raised twins, Elliott and Claire.
Sieglinde Martin
Sieglinde Martin was born 1940 at the beginning of World War II in Langenfeld/Rheinland, Germany. She completed her primary and secondary education in post-war Germany. In 1964 she came to the U.S. for a post-graduate traineeship in physical therapy. After meeting and marrying her husband Gerhard E. Martin, a neurologist from Danzig (now Gdansk), they made their home in Columbus. Here they worked and raised their four children.
Sieglinde Martin received a Masters of Science degree from OSU and worked as a pediatric physical therapist in a variety of setting. She previously published the book Teaching Motor Skills to Children with Cerebral Palsy and Similar Movement Disorders: A Guide for Parents and Professionals that has been published into several languages.
Now widowed and retired Sieglinde Martin enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. She is an active member of Central Ohioans for Peace, the Worthington Hills Garden Club and Columbus Folk Dancers.
Six narrators of Small Feet on the Run live in Columbus, one in Boston, one in Canada and the others in Germany.
Melissa Martin
Melissa Martin, Ph.D., is a clinical child therapist with experience as a play therapist, adjunct professor,
workshop leader and trainer, and behavioral health consultant. Her specializations include mental health trauma treatment, EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing), and expressive therapies. A self-syndicated newspaper columnist, she writes about children’s mental health issues and parenting. Melissa lives in Ohio.
Jennifer Maschari
Jennifer Maschari is a classroom teacher and the author of THE REMARKABLE JOURNEY OF CHARLIE PRICE and THINGS THAT SURPRISE YOU. She is hard at work on her next middle grade novel with Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins. Jennifer lives in Ohio with her husband and stinky (yet noble) English bulldogs, Oliver and Hank.
M.L Mastran
Monica was born in Scranton Pennsylvania but was raised in Youngstown, Ohio, which is also where she currently resides with her husband and son. Since a young age, Monica has always had a passion for storytelling. Anything that was of interest to her she could find a story with however, it was her stories of experiences such as walking in an old cemetery, to riding a roller coaster to walking the lonely isles of an old junk yard that seemed the most precious.
Monica has an undergraduate degree in Communication but also majored in History, which is what her Master’s Degree is in as well. She also started on her PHD in History. This love of history is very evident in most of Monica’s stories. While studying for both degrees, she wrote numerous works for the academic audience. Many of which were presented and published for both student and professional audiences, but at home she would continue to dabble with her love of fiction. It was the challenge of creating a new world and characters that would make for some great stories. In fact, she found out very quickly, strong characters drive the story and make it worth the journey.
Most of her writing comes from her literary and movie loves and inspirations. Some of her favorite TV shows (including ‘of all time’) are Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, the Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. One of her favorite authors is Anne Rice however, she is also a huge J.R.R. Tolkien fan and has read nearly all Tolkien works: her favorite book OF ALL TIME is The Silmarillion. Among her favorite movies are Gone with the Wind, Nosferatu (1922), Practical Magic, Reign of Fire, Braveheart, Gladiator and Lord of the Rings.
Monica has always lived by the philosophy so eloquently told by Helen Keller: ““Life is either a great adventure or nothing.” She loves the outdoors and is a frequent camper. She also loves the water and in the summer if not poolside, can be found on a boat or jet ski. She also loves snowmobiling and in the winter months can be found with the family on a snowmobile trail in the middle of the forest.
Jack Matthews
Jack Matthews, author of Etruscan’s The Gambler’s Nephew (2011), grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and served briefly in the U.S. Coast Guard during WWII. He graduated in 1949 from Ohio State University with degrees in English Literature & Classical Greek. He married Barbara Reese in 1947. To support his young and growing family, he worked at a variety of jobs, including 9 years as a post office clerk, during which time he began to publish short stories and eventually, in 1959, began to teach at Urbana (Ohio) College.
In 1964, they moved to Athens, where Matthews joined the English Department at Ohio University. They still live in the country near Athens. He and Barbara have 3 grown children, 7 grown grandchildren, and 4 great-grandchildren, with another on the way. During Spring 2010, he is teaching one course on his 2nd post-retirement contract, collecting old and rare books, and, of course, writing.
Olivia Matthews
Olivia Matthews is the mystery pseudonym of national best-selling author Patricia Sargeant. Patricia writes romance as Patricia Sargeant and Regina Hart. As Olivia Matthews, she’s written the Sister Lou Mysteries, Peach Coast Library Mysteries, and the Spice Isle Bakery Mysteries. Patricia’s work has been reviewed in national publications such as Publishers Weekly, USA Today, Kirkus Reviews, Suspense Magazine, Mystery Scene Magazine, Library Journal, and RT Book Reviews. Patricia was drawn to write romance because she believes love is the strongest motivation. Her mysteries put ordinary people in extraordinary situations to have them find the Hero Inside. For more information about Patricia and her work, visit PatriciaSargeant.com.