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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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.
Pam Bennett
Pam Bennett is the State Master Gardener volunteer coordinator for Ohio, and is the Horticulture Educator and Director for Ohio State University Extension in Clark County. She has a degree in landscape horticulture. Bennett lives in Madison, Ohio.
Tadgh Bentley
Tadgh Bentley is a painter, picture book author and illustrator. He is originally from the UK and now lives in Athens, Ohio with his wife, Emily; son, Fionn; and four-legged friend Atticus.
His publishing career began with the release of ‘Little Penguin gets the Hiccups’ in 2015, a story that was written shortly after Tadgh’s move to the US.…
Read MoreTadgh Bentley is a painter, picture book author and illustrator. He is originally from the UK and now lives in Athens, Ohio with his wife, Emily; son, Fionn; and four-legged friend Atticus.
His publishing career began with the release of ‘Little Penguin gets the Hiccups’ in 2015, a story that was written shortly after Tadgh’s move to the US. Tadgh juggled writing and illustrating with a full- and then part-time teaching career, but after fifteen years as an elementary school teacher, he left the profession to pursue creative endeavors full-time.
Tadgh retains a love of education and a passion for the written word. He is eager to share his enthusiasm and to de-mystify the creative process- in particular encouraging young people to see ‘mistakes’ as a valuable part of learning.
Learn more at https://tadghbentley.com/
Connie Bergstein Dow
Connie Bergstein Dow began dancing when she was four, and has been dancing ever since. After attending Denison University, and earning an MFA from the University of Michigan, she danced professionally in the US, Venezuela, and Guatemala. During her career as a dance educator, she has taught dance to three-year-olds, to senior adults in wheelchairs, and every age in between. In addition to her picture book From A to Z with Energy! (Free Spirit Publishing, 2019), she has written two books for teachers published by Redleaf Press: Dance, Turn, Hop, Learn! Enriching Movement Activities for Preschoolers, and One, Two, What Can I Do? Dance and Music for the Whole Day. She also writes articles for magazines and journals, and verses for Highlights magazines.
Ted Bernard
Ted Bernard has been a faculty member at Ohio University for over thirty years. He has done stints abroad as a senior lecturer and Senior Fulbright Scholar at Kenyatta University, a visiting scholar at Populations Studies and Research Institute of Nairobi, a visiting research professor and Rotary International Fellow at Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Center in Botswana, and an external examiner at the University of Dar es Salaam and the University of Botswana. Bernard’s teaching areas include Sustainability, American conservation history, natural resource management, and global environmental issues.
Emma Carlson Berne
Emma Carlson Berne has written over eighty titles for children and young adults on a variety of fiction and non-fiction topics. She often works with American Girl Publishing and has written five books of historical fiction and non-fiction for that press, focusing on the characters of Kaya, Josefina, Melody, and Samantha. Recently, Emma has written a new Star Wars series for Disney-Lucasfilm Press (Forces of Destiny: Daring Adventures 1-4, 2017).
In addition, Emma has published four YA novels with Simon Pulse (Flirt #4: Sunset Ranch, 2014< , Never Let You Go, 2012, Still Waters, 2011, Hard to Get, 2010), as well as ghostwriting YA thrillers and romances with Alloy Entertainment under the names Hailey Abbott and Elizabeth Woods. Emma often writes historical biography and has published biographies of Sacagawea, Christopher Columbus, and Helen Keller. Emma also writes sports fiction under the name Jake Maddox for Stone Arch Press, and many other non-fiction titles for Capstone Press, Lerner Publishing Group, Rosen Publishing, and others.
Connie Berry
Connie Berry is the author of the Kate Hamilton Mysteries, set in the UK and featuring an American antiques dealer with a gift for solving crimes. Like her protagonist, Connie was raised by antiques dealers who instilled in her a passion for history, fine art, and travel. In 2019 Connie won the IPPY Gold Medal for Mystery and was a finalist for the Agatha Award’s Best Debut. She’s a member of Mystery Writers of America and is on the board of the Guppies and her local Sisters in Crime chapter. Besides reading and writing mysteries, Connie loves history, foreign travel, cute animals, and all things British. She lives in Ohio with her husband and adorable Shih Tzu, Emmie. You can learn more about Connie and her books at her website http://www.connieberry.com.
Jesse Bethea
Jesse is a journalist, author, videographer, and the winner of the 2019 Great Novel Contest. Born and raised in Fairfax, VA, he to moved to Ohio in 2010.
In 2014, Jesse moved to Columbus and immediately started writing for ColumbusUnderground.com, where his work has been recognized several times by the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists. By 2015, he was working for The Ohio Channel (Ohio’s version of C-SPAN) as an assistant producer.
On the rare occasions when Jesse gives himself a break from writing, he enjoys hiking, true crime podcasts, and reading, specifically non-fiction disaster/survival narratives. If there’s a situation where people have had to eat each other, he’s interested in reading more about it.
Visit his website: https://jessebethea.com/