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): 2025
Fern Haught
Fern Haught (they/them) is an author, illustrator, and adjunct professor based in Cleveland Heights, OH. They love crafting stories incorporating queer characters and their relationships, often set in magical worlds. Their two cats, Binx and Honey, are often looking over their shoulder while they work, and do a great job of being honorary co-authors. When they aren’t creating books they decorate cookies at a local bakery and do background painting for games. The Baker and the Bard is their debut graphic novel!
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 longest lasting passion. She 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 Rest For The Departed. When not writing, she enjoys singing, gabbing about writing, and eating dark chocolate. Learn more at: https://www.nancyherriman.com/
Will Hillenbrand
Will Hillenbrand is a celebrated author and illustrator whose works include eighty picture books for young readers. In addition to his own self-illustrated titles, he has also illustrated the works of writers and retellers, including Verna Aardema, Judy Sierra, Margery Cuyler, Judith St. George, Phyllis Root, Jane Yolen, Karma Wilson and Jane Hillenbrand. Will has spent most of his life in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he grew up as the youngest of four boys. His childhood routines revolved around the neighborhood, his parents’ barbershop, the Northern Hills Library, playing baseball, and drawing. He now works in a small studio in the upstairs of his Cape Cod home, which he shares with his wife, Jane, a kindergarten teacher. Their son Ian, a geologist, is an avid reader and writer of many published scientific papers. Currently, he is doing postdoctoral work at the United States Geological Survey in Denver, Colorado. School Library Journal said: “There’s not a word out of place in this blustery adventure. It’s a masterful collaboration of illustration and text. This cozy winter tale, with its striking pictures, may appear to be cold but is quite the opposite,” about his book The Voice In The Hollow. Learn more at http://www.willhillenbrand.com.
Kate Hoefler
Kate Hoefler was born and still lives and writes in the rolling hills of Ohio’s Appalachia. She is the author of numerous books and loves the delicate tightrope that picture books stand on between the light that is and the light that could be. Three of her recent books, Rabbit and the Motorbike, Courage Hats, and In The Dark were Ohioana Floyd’s Pick Honor books. Her newest book, The Couch In The Yard, might allow readers to travel above and beyond their couches (wink-wink). She loves small dogs, pottery, being an introvert, and cheese. Follow her on Instagram: @katehoefler
Rebe Huntman
Rebe Huntman is the author of My Mother in Havana: A Memoir of Magic & Miracle (Monkfish Book Publishing Company, February 18, 2025). She is a memoirist, essayist, dancer, teacher, and poet who writes at the intersections of feminism, world religion and spirituality. For over a decade she directed Chicago’s award-winning Danza Viva Center for World Dance, Art & Music and its dance company, One World Dance Theater. Huntman collaborates with native artists in Cuba and South America, has been featured in Latina Magazine, Chicago Magazine, and The Chicago Tribune, and has appeared on Fox and ABC. A Macondo fellow and recipient of an Ohio Individual Excellence award, Huntman has received support for this book from The Ohio State University, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Ragdale Foundation, PLAYA Residency, Hambidge Center, and Brush Creek Foundation. She lives in Delaware, Ohio and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
E.M. Jones
E. M. Jones grew up in the rustic Ohio countryside. When he’s not working on his next book, he’s with his family, or busy exploring every local bookstore and library. If there is a creepy basement full of books, he will find it and spend too much time there. His short fiction has appeared in Mock Turtle Zine. The Darling Killer is his first novel.
Yalie Saweda Kamara
Yalie Saweda Kamara, Ph.D. is a Sierra Leonean American writer, educator, and researcher from Oakland, California. She is the 2022-2025 Cincinnati and Mercantile Library Poet Laureate and a 2023 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. Kamara is the author of the poetry collection Besaydoo (Milkweed Editions, 2024), which was noted in The New York Times, The Rumpus, and Poets & Writers. Kamara earned a PhD in Creative Writing and English Literature from the University of Cincinnati. She is an assistant professor of English at Xavier University. For more, please visit: http://www.yaylala.com
Shawnie Kelley
Shawnie Kelley has lived in Columbus since 1997 and calls Upper Arlington home since 2002. She studied Art History at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, The Ohio State University, and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Shawnie is the author of the all three editions of the Insiders’ Guide® to Columbus, several books about Cape Cod, and has contributed food and travel-related articles to both national and international magazines, including Edible Columbus and Sophisticated Living. She owns Wanderlust Tours, a cultural and culinary travel company, and teaches cooking classes for The Mix at Columbus State. Some of her best times are just exploring the world, sniffing out regional food, writing about spas, afternoon tea and golf, and adventuring with her fun little family: Dan, Madalyn, and Gabe. She hopes the Insiders’ Guide will expose Columbus as the international capital city it is becoming!
Mercedes King
Mercedes King is an Ohio native and founding member of Buckeye Crime Writers. Mixing fact with fiction is her specialty and has served her well when it comes to crafting stories about the private lives of famous people. Although she enjoys setting her tales in not-so-distant decades, she also writes contemporary mysteries and crime fiction.
Jason R. Lady
Jason is an army brat who grew up moving around a total of seven times on military bases from Germany to Fort Knox, Kentucky. When he’d move to a new base, Jason would star all the kids in his classes as characters in his own stories and comic strips. This helped kids from all over the country bond and have fun. Jason’s books have been accepted to the Ohioana Book Festival, the Kentucky Book Festival, and the Columbus Book Festival. His second book, Super Problems, was a Maxy Awards finalist and is IndieReader approved. When he’s not writing, Jason is into 1980s pop culture, follows the Cleveland Guardians, and has a goal to visit all the MLB baseball stadiums. Jason lives with his wife in Cleveland, Ohio. The Pure Shore Club is his 4th novel. Learn more at: https://www.jasonrlady.com/