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): Fiction
Karina Bartow
Karina Bartow hails from Northern Ohio. Though born with Cerebral Palsy, she’s never allowed her disability to define her. Rather, she’s used her experiences to breathe life into characters who have physical limitations, but like her, are determined not to let them stand in the way of the life they want. She may only be able to type with one hand, but she writes with her whole heart!
To learn more, visit http://www.KarinaBartow.com.
Vidas Barzdukas
Vidas Barzdukas is an award-winning writer and director whose films have been screened at numerous U.S. film festivals, featured on PBS stations, and broadcast on television networks in Asia. In 2015, Vidas earned accolades from the Columbus Dispatch for his “stirring and amusing” stage adaptation of Rafael Sabatini’s 1922 swashbuckling novel Captain Blood. His film, the black-and-white fantasy “The New Mr. Phillips,” won Best Narrative Short at the Oregon Film Awards, and he also won the Best Screenwriting award for his short film “Cold” at the Cincinnati Winterfilm Film Competition. Vidas was nominated for “Best Writer—Drama” by the International Academy of Web Television (IAWTV) for his work on the science fiction series Aidan 5, which was nominated for 19 IAWTV awards. Vidas is a writer on the Emmywinning Nite Owl Theatre starring Fritz the Nite Owl, which is a long-running, late-night staple of Central Ohio’s film scene. In addition to theatre and film, Vidas works in educational publishing, where he writes a wide variety of textbooks and classroom materials for K-12 students. His educational publishing subjects include reading, language arts, and history. Vidas’s passion for education also earned him a spot on the Emmy-winning children’s show Taylor’s Attic as its Educational Writing Consultant. A proud member of the Dramatists Guild, Vidas lives in Ohio with his wife and two daughters.
Tom Batiuk
In Tom’s own words: “Okay, here we go, gang, biography lite. I was born in Akron, Ohio, in 1947. After graduating from Kent State University in 1969 with a BFA and a certificate in education, I taught art in Elyria, Ohio at Eastern Heights Jr. High. In 1970, while I was teaching, I began drawing a panel for the teen page of the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram. Those strips led to the creation of Funky Winkerbean in 1972. Funky is syndicated by King Features Syndicate to more than 400 newspapers nationwide. I skipped over a lot of hard work in the middle there, but that’s basically the gist of it for those of you doing term papers. In 1979. I launched John Darling into syndication working with Tom Armstrong, Gerry Shamray, and Bob Vojtko, in that order. Great artists all. John Darling was a talk show host who first saw the light of day in Funky, and who was quite literally killed off when his strip ended. Another character from Funky, Ed Crankshaft, soloed in his own strip in 1987, on which I work with the inimitable and talented Dan Davis.”
S. F. Baumgartner
S.F. Baumgartner is a Christian suspense thriller author. She graduated from the University of Hawaii and the University of Cincinnati. When not writing, she enjoys spending time with her cats, staying active, and binge-watching crime TV shows. She lives in Ohio with her family.
Isaiah Bealer
Isaiah Bealer is a Cincinnati, OH native. He is an versatile author, whose writing style specializes on catching the undivided attention of his readers. Harnessing the most out of his character’s traits, Isaiah is able to create an array of intriguing plots to manifest immaculate stories. Isaiah’s first published book is a fiction novel by the title of “Forever My Brother.” Although, he switches genres, his second published work titled, “The King In Me” is just as entertaining as his first. Isaiah’s overall objective through his writing is to inspire people around the world to reach the zenith of their full potential.
Janet Beard
Born and raised in East Tennessee, Janet Beard moved to New York to study screenwriting at NYU and went on to earn an MFA in creative writing from The New School. Her first novel, ‘Beneath the Pines’, was published in 2008, and her follow-up, ‘The Atomic City Girls’ became an international bestseller 2018. Janet’s latest novel, The Ballad of Laurel Springs, was published in October 2021. Janet has lived and worked in Australia, England, Boston, and Columbus, Ohio, where she is currently raising a daughter and working on a new novel.
Carrie Bebris
Carrie Bebris spent her childhood in Toledo before beginning her writing career as a journalist, college English teacher, and editor. After publishing two fantasy novels, she made her mystery debut with Pride and Prescience, which earned a place on the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association bestseller list and was named one of the five best mysteries of the year by Library Journal. Successive books in the series have received starred reviews in Publisher’s Weekly and won several awards, including the 2007 Daphne du Maurier Award for excellence in romantic suspense. Bebris holds a master’s degree in English literature and is a life member of the Jane Austen Society of North America. She speaks locally and nationally about Austen, writing, and publishing, and is on the faculty of the Antioch Writers Workshop in Yellow Springs. When not writing, Bebris likes to travel and indulge in her love of all things British. She now lives in the Dayton area.
Kimberly Beckett
Ever since she can remember, Kimberly Beckett has loved horses. It wasn’t until she got her first job however, that could afford to buy her first horse, and she hasn’t been without at least one ever since. Kimberly has now found a way to combine her love of horses with her love of romance by writing her own version of equine-facilitated happily ever afters. She truly believes that Horses Heal Hearts.
Joe David Bellamy
Born on December 29, 1941, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Joe David Bellamy was the son of Orin Ross and Beulah Pearl (Zutavern) Bellamy. He attended Duke University, 1959-1961; he received a BA in Literature from Antioch College in 1964 and received an MFA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1969. Bellamy married Connie Sue Arendsee in 1964. Professor, writer and poet, Bellamy taught at several colleges and universities, including the University of Iowa, Virginia Wesleyan College, St. Lawrence University, and George Mason University, and was Whichard Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at East Carolina University. His literary papers are archived at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University. Joe David Bellamy died suddenly on August 5, 2014 in Sanford, Florida.
The founding editor of Fiction International magazine (1973), Bellamy was a former president of both the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) and the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines; he also served as Director of the Literature Program of the National Endowment for the Arts (1990-1992). His articles, fiction, poetry and reviews have been published in The Atlantic,The Nation, Harper’s, Paris Review, Narrative, The New York Times Book Review, Ploughshares, Partisan Review, Story, North American Review, The Washington Post Book World, and more than sixty others.
In 1989 Bellamy won the Editors’ Book Award from Pushcart Press for his novel Suzi Sinzinnati, and Atomic Love, his 1993 collection of short stories, was an AWP Award Series selection. He also authored/edited sixteen other books, including Green Freedom, 2012; The Lost Saranac Interviews: Forgotten Conversations with Famous Writers, 2007; New World Extra, Literary Luxuries: American Writing at the End of the Millennium, 1995; American Poetry Observed: Poets On Their Work, 1988; The Frozen Sea: Poems, 1988; Olympic Gold Medalist: Poems, 1978; Superfiction, or The American Story Transformed, 1975; The New Fiction: Interviews with Innovative Writers, 1974, and three genealogy books: Kindred Spirits: 400 Years of an American Family, 2011; Island in the Sky: Bellamy and Allied Families, 2010, and The Bellamys of Early Virginia, 2005.