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.
Brian McClellan
Brian lives in Cleveland, Ohio with his wife, two dogs, a cat, and between 6,000 and 60,000 honey bees (depending on the time of year).
He began writing on Wheel of Time role playing websites at fifteen. Encouraged toward writing by his parents, he started working on short stories and novellas in his late teens. He went on to major in English with an emphasis on creative writing at Brigham Young University. It was here he met Brandon Sanderson, who encouraged Brian’s feeble attempts at plotting and characters more than he should have.
Brian continued to study writing not just as an art but as a business and was determined this would be his life-long career. He attended Orson Scott Card’s Literary Bootcamp in 2006. In 2008, he received honorable mention in the Writers of the Future Contest.
In November 2011, The Powder Mage Trilogy sold at auction to Orbit Books. The trilogy is out now: Promise of Blood, The Crimson Campaign, and The Autumn Republic, with a new trilogy set to begin in 2016.
Jennifer McGowan
Jennifer McGowan was born in Ohio, grew up in Montana, and studied in Paris. She has held numerous writing jobs over the years, but author is by far her favorite. A past Romance Writers of America Golden Heart winner, Jenn is the author of the Maids of Honor series, which currently includes Maid of Secrets (2013) and Maid of Deception (2014).…
Read MoreJennifer McGowan was born in Ohio, grew up in Montana, and studied in Paris. She has held numerous writing jobs over the years, but author is by far her favorite. A past Romance Writers of America Golden Heart winner, Jenn is the author of the Maids of Honor series, which currently includes Maid of Secrets (2013) and Maid of Deception (2014). She lives and writes in Ohio, and you can connect with her online at JenniferMcGowan.com, find her on twitter via @Jenn_McGowan, or visit her Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorJenniferMcGowan.
Thomas Scott McKenzie
Raised on a thoroughbred horse farm in Bourbon County, Kentucky, Thomas Scott McKenzie received a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Mississippi. He is the author of Power Chord: One Man’s Ear-Splitting Quest to Find His Guitar Heroes and the co-author of The Man Behind the Nose: Assassins, Astronauts, Cannibals, and Other Stupendous Tales. McKenzie’s work has appeared in Tin House, Laptop, Premier Guitar, Stuff, The Aethlon: Journal of Sport Literature, Columbus Monthly, Salon.com, MTV’s The Hive, and others. He has been a reviewer for PopMatters.com, a staff writer for the longest running internet drama Crimescene.com, and a contributor to TechCrunch.com. He founded and runs Slushpile.net, a books and publishing blog.