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.
Leonard Kress
Leonard Kress grew up in and around Philadelphia and studied religion at Temple University (BA), Slavic Literature and Folklore at Indiana University and the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, and Poetry at Columbia University (MFA). He has published 8 collections of poetry, most recently The Orpheus Complex (Main Street Rag, 2009), Thirteens (Aureole Press, 2010), Braids & Other Sestinas (Seven Kitchens Press, 20110, and Living in the Candy Store (Finishing Line Press, 2011).
He has also completed a new verse translation of the 19th century, Romantic epic, Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz. Poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and translations from Polish have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Massachusetts Review, Harvard Review, Iowa Review, Crab Orchard Review, etc. He has been awarded grants in poetry and playwriting from the Ohio Arts Council and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and was the invited American poet to the Warsaw Autumn of Poetry in 2006.
Kress currently teaches philosophy, religion and creative writing at Owens College in northwest Ohio.
Trudy Krisher
Trudy Krisher is an award-winning author of young adult novels, children’s picture books, and a scholarly biography. Her recent biography, Fanny Seward: A Life, won a Silver Medal from the Independent Publishers Association. Awards for her historical novels for young adults include the International Reading Association Award, a Jefferson Cup Honor Award, the American Library Association Best Books award, and many others. She has spoken at many local, regional, and national forums including the American Library Association, The National Conference of Teachers of English, and the New York Public Library. She is a retired professor from the Department of Liberal Arts, Communication, and Social Sciences at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio. She currently hosts a public access television show in Dayton, Ohio called “The Writer’s Nook.” She has been featured as part of the Dayton region’s PBS-TV initiative “The Great American Read.” You can learn more about her at http://www.trudykrisherauthor.com.
Education: B.A., College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia
M.Ed., College of New Jersey, Trenton, New Jersey
Selected Publications:
Bark Park. Children’s Picture Book. Simon & Schuster/Beach Lane Books, 2019.
Fanny Seward: A Life. Biography. Syracuse University Press. 2015.
“An Affectionate Farewell”: The Story of Old Bob and Old Abe. Children’s picture book. Bunker Hill Publishing. 2015.
Fallout: A Novel. Young Adult Novel. New York: Holiday House. 2006.
Uncommon Faith: A Novel. Young Adult Novel. New York: Holiday House. 2003.
“We Loved Lucy.” Short Story solicited for Time Capsule: Short Stories about Teenagers throughout the Twentieth Century, edited by Don Gallo, New York, Delacorte Press, 1999. Laurel Leaf paperback released through Bantam Doubleday Dell, New York, 2001.
Kinship: A Novel. Young Adult Novel. Random House. 1997. Laurel Leaf paperback released through Bantam Doubleday Dell, New York, 1999. Audio recording from Recorded Books, 2001.
Writing for a Reader: Peers, Process, and Progress in the Writing Classroom. College Writing Textbook. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. 1994.
Spite Fences: A Novel. Young Adult Novel. New York: Delacorte. 1994. Norwegian rights acquired by Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1997. Laurel Leaf paperback released through Bantam Doubleday Dell, New York, 1996. Audio recording from Recorded Books, 2000.
Kathy’s Hats: A Story of Hope. Children’s Picture Book. Chicago: Albert Whitman & Company, 1992. Japanese rights acquired by Hyoronsha, Tokyo, Japan, 1997.
The Writer’s Image: Literary Photographs by Jill Krementz. Introduction by Kurt Vonnegut. Preface by Trudy Krisher. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.
Robert Kroeger
Dr. Robert Kroeger, a native of Youngstown, graduated from Ohio State University’s College of Dentistry, served four years of active duty in the US Navy, ending with the rank of lieutenant commander. He and his late wife Brenda moved to Cincinnati where they raised five children and Dr. Kroeger practiced general dentistry from 1977 to 2010, when he retired. He and his wife Laura also live in Cincinnati, where they enjoy spending time with nine grandchildren. [INSERT IMAGE A-63 CAPTION: Robert Kroeger. Photograph, David Bimschleger] Dr. Kroeger is a second-generation artist, though, unlike his father Francis, who held an art degree from Notre Dame, his professional art career blossomed later in life. Though he did not immediately follow in his father’s footsteps, Robert’s career as a dentist allowed him to study color values and facial esthetic principles in smile design. He is the author of Historic Barns of Ohio, a book that features a barn, its painting, and its essay in each of Ohio’s 88 counties. Dr. Kroeger has also written two books on dentistry and seven books on golf in Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland, including To The 14th Tee, The Links of Wales, The Golf Courses of Old Tom Morris, Golf on the Links of Ireland, Golf on the Links of England, Complete Guide to the Golf Courses of Scotland, and The Secrets of Islay. This is his second book on old barns but hopefully not his last. Learn more at: https://www.barnart.weebly.com/
Lisa Krok
Lisa Krok, MLIS, MEd, is the adult and teen services manager at Morley Library in the Cleveland, Ohio, area and a former teacher. She is a regular presenter at the Virginia Hamilton Multicultural Literature Conference, and her passion is reaching marginalized teens and reluctant readers through young adult literature. Krok was appointed to the 2019-2020 YALSA Presidential Advisory Task Force. In January of 2020, she will begin her appointment on the Best Fiction for Young Adults (BFYA) 2021 committee. Krok was also selected for the 2018 and 2019 Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers teams, which earned her a 2018 YALSA Volunteer of the Year Award. She writes for School Library Journal’s Teen Librarian Toolbox and has also blogged for American Libraries magazine and YALSA’s The Hub.
John W. Kropf
John Kropf is the author of Unknown Sands: Journeys Around the World’s Most Isolated Country that Publisher’s Weekly praised as a fascinating narrative bound to hook adventurers. His writing has appeared in appeared The Baltimore Sun, Florida Sun-Sentinel, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. Kropf was born in Sandusky and raised in Erie County, Ohio. He is an attorney in the Washington, DC. area. http://compulsivelyaimless.blogspot.com/
Nan Kuhlman
Nan Kuhlman is an author, freelance writer, and part-time university professor who lives in Los Angeles but still thinks of rural northwest Ohio as home. Her nonfiction book Nontraditional: Life Lessons from a Community College tells of her time spent as an adjunct writing professor at a small community college there and intertwines the stories of her nontraditional students with her own nontraditional start in higher education. The lesson of Nontraditional is about life’s circuitous nature and how the indirect way may be the best route to get where you need to go.
Nan currently works as a technical writer in Los Angeles, but because her freelancing career has spanned more than two decades, she can’t break her streak and continues to freelance in her free time. You can read her eclectic collection of writing at http://www.nankuhlman.com.
Jillian Kuhlmann
Jillian Kuhlmann spent her formative years feeding her overactive imagination with The X-Files and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
She grew up on a farm, leaving many library books out in the rain and playing pioneer after she read (a lot of) Laura Ingalls Wilder. Writing stories with her best friend during her adolescence was preferable to admitting that there wasn’t any such thing as fairies or actually mustering up the courage to talk to boys.
After receiving her Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing and English Literature from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio in 2006 and her Master’s degree in Creative Writing from the University of Cincinnati in 2008, Jillian lost herself in writing the first of many drafts of The Hidden Icon. Between edits she got married and had a baby (both of these things were awesome; the editing, not so much).
Though she still toys with short fiction and flash fiction, novel-length fiction has always been her favorite to write and to read. Juliet Marillier’s Son of the Shadows is easily her favorite book of all time.
She lives with her husband, their two daughters, and a wicked costume collection in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Julia Kuo
Julia Kuo is the author and illustrator of Let’s Do Everything and Nothing and Luminous: Living Things that Light Up the Night. She is the illustrator of many picture and specialty books including the bestselling book RISE. Julia has created editorial illustrations for publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist. She has taught at Columbia College Chicago and at her alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis. Learn more at: https://www.juliakuo.com/.
Peter Kurtz
Peter Kurtz was born in New Jersey but raised in Mansfield, Ohio. He obtained a B.S. in Journalism from Ohio University and currently lives in Cincinnati. He’s worked as a jazz disc jockey, freelance writer, and primarily as an engineering technical writer. Kurtz’s books include Bluejackets in the Blubber Room (University of Alabama Press), praised by both maritime and Civil War historians; a trail-hiking memoir, Evergreen Dreaming; and the Nick Montaigne detective mysteries, Black Jackknife and The Shades Dripped Red, the latter of which was inspired by an unsolved true crime in Kurtz’s old neighborhood. His books have earned glowing reviews from Publishers Weekly and Midwest Book Review.
Kurtz enjoys marathon running, backpacking, reading, travel, playing guitar, and enjoying his three granddaughters. He cites his greatest achievements (besides raising a family) as completing a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, and reading all of Herman Melville’s sea books several times over. Learn more at: https://peterkurtz.wordpress.com