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.
Kathryn Haueisen
Kathryn Haueisen loves to meet fascinating people and write articles and books about them. Sometimes she lets her imagination run wild and writes short stories about imaginary people, loosely based on people she’s met. She’s published seven books, both non-fiction and fiction. Her most recent books are historical novels about the famous Mayflower voyage, the 17th century issues in Europe that led to the voyage, and the first encounters between the New England settlers and the Indigenous peoples. She has published dozens of articles in assorted faith-based and consumer publications. Since retiring from active ministry as an ordained Protestant pastor she has been focusing on writing regular blogs and a monthly newsletter at http://www.howwisethen.com.
Stephen Haven
Stephen Haven is the author of The Last Sacred Place in North America, selected by T.R. Hummer as winner of the 2010 New American Press Poetry Prize. He has published two previous collections of poetry, Dust and Bread, for which he was named 2009 Ohio Poet of the Year, and The Long Silence of the Mohawk Carpet Smokestacks. He is also author of the memoir The River Lock: One Boy’s Life Along the Mohawk. He has a Ph.D. in American Civilization from New York University and an MFA in Poetry from the University of Iowa. His poems have appeared in The Southern Review, American Poetry Review, Parnassus, Literary Imagination, Crazyhorse, Guernica, Salmagundi, Northwest Review, Image, Western Humanities Review, World Literature (Beijing), and in many other journals. He is Director of the Ashland University MFA Program in Poetry and Creative Nonfiction in Ashland, Ohio, and Director of the Ashland Poetry Press.
Richard Hawley
Richard Hawley grew up in Arlington Heights, Illinois, before attending Middlebury College, where he completed his B.A. in political science. He went on to graduate studies at Case Western Reserve University, where he earned an M.S. in Management Science and a Ph.D. in political philosophy. He also studied theology for a year at St. John’s College, Cambridge University, as an M.A. research student under the tutelage of the theologian W. Norman Pittenger. From 1968 until his retirement in 2005, he was a teacher, administrator, and finally Headmaster at Cleveland’s University School, an independent college preparatory school for boys. In 1995 he was named the founding president of the International Boys Schools Coalition. A writer of fiction, poetry, and literary non-fiction, Hawley has published more than twenty books and several monographs. His essays, articles and poems have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, American Film, Commonweal, America, Orion, and The Christian Science Monitor and is represented in many literary anthologies. Hawley lives with his wife in Ripton, Vermont and is online at http://www.richardalanhawley.com/.
Sherri Hayes
Sherri spent most of her childhood detesting English class. It was one of her least favorite subjects because she never seemed to fit into the standard mold. She wasn’t good at spelling, or following grammar rules, and outlines made her head spin. For that reason, Sherri never imagined becoming an author. At the age of thirty, all of that changed. After getting frustrated with the direction a television show was taking two of its characters, Sherri decided to try her hand at writing an alternate ending, and give the characters their happily ever after. By the time the story finished, it was one of the top ten read stories on the site, and her readers were encouraging her to write more.
Writing has become a creative outlet that allows her to explore a wide range of emotions, while having fun taking her characters through all the twists and turns she can create.
Christine Hayes
Christine Hayes spent her childhood in Columbus restaurants while her father gathered tidbits for his Columbus Citizen-Journal columns. She published a book of these columns, The Ben Hayes Scrapbook. Today Christine assists in the Acorn Bookshop in Grandview, writes a column for the Short North Gazette, and as Ramona Moon makes art cars and collage/assemblage. She graduated from UC Irvine in theatre, taught Montessori school, and lived in San Francisco for 27 years before returning to Columbus.
Wil Haygood
Will Haygood is a former Boston Globe (where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist) and Washington Post reporter. Haygood has received writing fellowships from the Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Alicia Patterson Foundations. His biographies of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Sammy Davis Jr., Sugar Ray Robinson, and Thurgood Marshall have been widely acclaimed. Haygood also wrote the New York Times bestseller, The Butler: A Witness to History, which was adapted into an award-winning movie. Haygood is currently serving an appointment as Boadway Visiting Distinguished Scholar at his alma mater, Miami University, Ohio.
William Heath
William Heath was born in Youngstown, Ohio, and grew up in the nearby town of Poland. He attended Hiram College and Case Western Reserve University, with a Ph.D. in American Studies. He has taught at Kenyon, Transylvania, Vassar, the University of Seville, and Mt. St. Mary’s University, where he is a professor emeritus. The William Heath Award is given annually to the best student writer. He has published two chapbooks, Night Moves in Ohio and Leaving Seville; two books of poems, The Walking Man and Steel Valley Elegy; three novels: The Children Bob Moses Led (winner of the Hackney Award), Devil Dancer, and Blacksnake’s Path; a work of history, William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest (winner of two Spur Awards); and a collection of interviews, Conversations with Robert Stone. His essays on American literature and history have appeared in numerous scholarly journals. He has his wife, the Catalan novelist Roser Caminals, live in Frederick, Maryland.
In addition to his poetry, William Heath is also the author of an award-winning work of history, William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest. He can be found online at http://www.williamheathbooks.com
John Hegenberger
Award-winning author, John Hegenberger has produced more than a dozen books since mid-2015, including several popular series: Stan Wade LAPI in 1959, Eliot Cross Columbus-based PI in 1988, and TRIPLEYE, featuring the first private eye agency on Mars. He’s the father of three, tennis enthusiast, collector of silent films, hiker, Francophile, B.A. Comparative Lit., ex-Navy, and happily married for 48 years and counting. Active member of SFWA, PWA, SinC and ITW. His novel SPYFALL won a 2016 award at Killer Nashville.
Susan Gee Heino
I was always one of those kids constantly writing stories and forcing my parents—and my sisters, teachers, friends, neighbors, and the family dog—to read them. I wrote stories about everything from animals and Star Wars to worms and haunted school buses. One thing was constant, though: there was always a happy ending.
In college, my talents led my into the Theatre where I discovered writing scripts for others to perform was a whole lot more fun than memorizing
someone else’s.…
I was always one of those kids constantly writing stories and forcing my parents—and my sisters, teachers, friends, neighbors, and the family dog—to read them. I wrote stories about everything from animals and Star Wars to worms and haunted school buses. One thing was constant, though: there was always a happy ending.
In college, my talents led my into the Theatre where I discovered writing scripts for others to perform was a whole lot more fun than memorizing
someone else’s. After several years working with improvisational groups, collegiate drama, small community theatres, church drama ministries, and whatever other job helped to pay the bills, I figured it was time to settle down. I accepted the permanent role of preacher’s wife and child herder.
To preserve my sanity, I took my love of happy endings and began to focus on writing romance. In 2008 I won RWA’s Golden Heart ® Award in the Regency Historical category and my first book, MISTRESS BY MISTAKE, was published by Berkley Sensation in 2009. Since then, I have gone on to publish multiple Historical Romances all set in the fascinating Regency time period.
Today I’m living out my own Happily-Ever-After in rural Ohio with an ever-changing menagerie of creatures, my very supportive husband, and the two most adorable –and frighteningly creative– children imaginable. We are all addicted to happy endings, and that seems to be working out just fine.
Nancy Herriman
Nancy Herriman has fronted a cover band, acted on stage, and worked in the tech industry as an engineer. Writing is her current and most long-lasting passion. Her work has won the Daphne du Maurier award, and Publishers Weekly says her ‘A Mystery of Old San Francisco’ series “…brings 1867 San Francisco to vivid life.” Her latest release is NO REFUGE FROM THE GRAVE. She is also the author of the Bess Ellyott Mysteries. When not writing, she enjoys singing, gabbing about writing, and eating dark chocolate. Learn more at: https://www.nancyherriman.com/