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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Jane Dippold
A lifelong Ohioan, Jane Dippold is the illustrator of the 2015-16 Choose to Read Ohio picture book choice Farmers Market Day, a story about an enthusiastic (and slightly clumsy) little girl searching for the perfect treat at the market. The watercolor and pencil illustrations for Farmerʼs Market Day set in a colorful, crowded farmers market, were inspired by many visits to historic Findlay Market in Cincinnati where she lived for over 15 years.
From a young age, Jane loved art. Illustrations she saw in Cricket Magazine and the Childcraft series of books in her childhood home, as well as cartoons and newspaper comic strips sparked her interest. Graduating from Miami University with a Fine Arts degree, she worked as an artist for a greeting card company. For the past 20 years, Jane has been illustrating for children’s books, children’s magazines and children’s educational publishing. Living with her husband and three children in Coldwater, Ohio, Jane is currently working on a few children’s stories of her own. In addition, she creates fine art collage paintings of the beautiful farm landscapes that surround her in rural Mercer County. More art and information can be found at her website: janedippold.com
Athena Dixon
Athena Dixon is a poet, essayist, and editor. Her work is included in the anthology The BreakBeat Poets Vol.2: Black Girl Magic and her craft work appears in Getting to the Truth: The Craft and Practice of Creative Nonfiction. Athena is an alumna of VONA, Callaloo, and Tin House and has received a prose fellowship from The Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Born and raised in Northeast Ohio, Athena now resides in Philadelphia.
Meredith Doench
Meredith Doench is the author of the Luce Hansen thriller series and Whereabouts Unknown. Her writing has also appeared in many literary journals. She is a board member of Mystery Writers of America, Midwest Chapter, and is a senior lecturer of creative writing, literature, and composition at the University of Dayton in Ohio. For more information about this author and to view book purchase information, visit http://www.meredithdoench.com
Anthony Doerr
Anthony Doerr was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He is the author of the story collections The Shell Collector and Memory Wall, the memoir Four Seasons in Rome, and the novels About Grace, All the Light We Cannot See, which was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and Cloud Cuckoo Land, which was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award and is currently a finalist for Novel of the Year in the British Book Awards.…
Read MoreAnthony Doerr was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He is the author of the story collections The Shell Collector and Memory Wall, the memoir Four Seasons in Rome, and the novels About Grace, All the Light We Cannot See, which was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and Cloud Cuckoo Land, which was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award and is currently a finalist for Novel of the Year in the British Book Awards.
Doerr’s short stories and essays have won five O. Henry Prizes and been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, New American Stories, The Best American Essays, The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Fiction, and many other places. His work has been translated into over forty different languages and won the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize, the Rome Prize, the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship, an Alex Award from the American Library Association, the National Magazine Award for Fiction, four Pushcart Prizes, three Pacific Northwest Book Awards, four Ohioana Book Awards, the 2010 Story Prize, which is considered the most prestigious prize in the U.S. for a collection of short stories, and the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award. All the Light We Cannot See was a #1 New York Times bestseller, remained on the New York Times Bestseller List for over 200 weeks, and is being adapted as a limited series by Netflix.
Doerr lives in Boise, Idaho with his wife and two sons. Though he is often asked, as far as he knows he is not related to the late writer Harriet Doerr. Check out his website: https://www.anthonydoerr.com/
Christina Dorr
Christina Dorr’s love affair with books began early when her mother took her to the tiny, red-brick public library in their village. This involvement has led her to become an award-winning librarian, author, presenter, and consultant. She has served on a number of state and national book award committees, including the Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, Geisel Award, and Stonewall committees. This is her fifth book, and the second one published by the American Library Association. You can visit her website at http://www.opendorrs2books.com.
Chad Dotson
Chad Dotson writes about the Reds for Cincinnati Magazine and about baseball in general for ESPN.com. He is also the founder and managing editor of Redleg Nation, a popular site devoted to baseball and the Cincinnati Reds. A longtime member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), Chad lives in Virginia with his wife, Sabrina, and two children, Reagan and Casey.
Chris Garber serves as contributing editor and featured writer for Redleg Nation, where he has written about the Reds for more than a decade. Chris lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife Katie and their three children.
Connie Bergstein Dow
Dance has always been a part of Connie Bergstein Dow’s life. Her parents enrolled her in dance classes when she was four years old, because she was continually falling down and bumping into things. Through dance, she gained strength, confidence, and a voice for self-expression. This introduction led her to a lifelong career.
Connie grew up in Cincinnati, attended Denison University, and earned an MFA in Dance from the University of Michigan. She danced professionally in the US, Venezuela, and Guatemala. During her long career as a dance educator, she has taught dance to three-year-olds, to senior adults in wheelchairs, and to students every age in between. She has written two books for teachers about integrating movement into the early childhood classroom, articles for magazines and journals, and verses for Highlights magazines. From A to Z with Energy! is Connie’s first picture book. She continues to share her passion for dance by writing, volunteering, visiting schools and libraries, and offering movement workshops to early childhood professionals. She feels strongly that dance and the other arts are essential and transformational forces in our lives.
Sharon M. Draper
Sharon M. Draper is a professional educator as well as an accomplished writer. She has been honored as the National Teacher of the Year, is a five-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Literary Awards, and is a New York Times bestselling author, with Out of my Mind staying on the list for almost two years. She was selected as Ohio’s Outstanding High School Language Arts Educator, Ohio Teacher of the Year, and was chosen as a NCNW Excellence in Teaching Award winner. She is a Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award winner, and was the Duncanson Artist-in-Residence for the Taft Museum. She is a YWCA Career Woman of Achievement, and is the recipient of the Dean’s Award from Howard University School of Education, the Pepperdine University Distinguished Alumnus Award, the Marva Collins Education Excellence Award, and the Governor’s Educational Leadership Award. Last year she was named Ohio Pioneer in Education by the Ohio State Department of Education, and in 2008 she received the Beacon of Light Humanitarian award. In 2009 she received the Doctor of Laws Degree from Pepperdine University. In 2011, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions to the field of adolescent literature by The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English, as well as the 33rd Annual Jeremiah Luddington Award by the Educational Book and Media Association, also for lifetime achievement. In 2015 she was honored by the American Library Association as the recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime literary achievement. In 2015 she was honored with the Anne V. Zarrow Award by the Tulsa Library Trust., as well as the 2016 Upstander Award by Antioch College.
Julie Drew
Julie Drew is an Ohio-based writer and English professor who has published seven books, multiple academic and national media articles, as well as new fiction reviews. In addition to teaching creative writing at the graduate and undergraduate levels, she has offered writing workshops in the Midwest and New England.
Julie earned a BA in Creative Writing, MA in English literature, and PhD in Rhetoric and Writing from the University of South Florida. She is currently a Professor of English at The University of Akron where she teaches creative writing, cultural studies, and women & film.
Her most recent work, The Tesla Effect trilogy, is a young adult series comprised of Glimpse (2014), Run (2014), and Breathe (June 2015). The first two books in the trilogy were included on Ohio.com’s list of Memorable Books of 2014.
Julie’s novels have been reviewed in Publishers Weekly, Library Journal (her novel Daughter of Providence received a coveted Red Star Review), Kirkus, Booklist, Historical Novels Review (where Daughter of Providence received an Editor’s Choice designation), Cleveland Plain Dealer, Providence Journal, and Akron Beacon Journal.
Having grown up in Florida and then lived in Ohio for more than a decade, Julie and her husband now happily spend part of every year near the ocean in Rhode Island. She loves dogs, loves to travel and hike, is an amateur foodie and unabashed TV enthusiast, and enjoys outdoorsy volunteer work in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Visit her at http://www.juliedrew.com.