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.
John-Michael Lander
John-Michael Lander is creating a voice. Through writing, speaking, and consulting, he helps individuals and organizations identify the signs of grooming, manipulating, and stigmatizing of sexual abuse and how to help survivors (of any type of abuse) face the past and find their true self. John-Michael battled with finding his true self and authentic voice. As an athlete, he endured sexual abuse from coaches, benefactors, and medical team which resulted in years of PTDS, depression, anxiety, and even suicide attempts. His research, The Grooming Trifecta, provides how grooming effects everyone no matter their sexual orientation, gender, or religious beliefs. John-Michael competed in international springboard and platform diving competition. His entertainment experiences include General Hospital, All My Children, national commercials, the lead in the independent films All the Rage and Pilgrim, and originated many roles on New York stages. He taught high school English for seven years at the nationally recognized Stivers High School of the Arts in Dayton, Ohio. John-Michael presented the speech “An Athlete’s Silence” at the TEDxDayton 2018 Convention and was a Keynote Speaker at the 2019 and 2020 Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation Global Summit in Washington, D.C. He is on the Board of Directors for The Army of Survivors. He has been honored to speak all over the world. He is the author of four novels: Surface Tension: Book One in the Surface Series, Cracked Surface: Book Two in the Surface Series, Spandau Ballet, and Life’s a Beach.
Melissa Landers
Melissa Landers is a former teacher who left the classroom to pursue other worlds. A proud sci-fi geek, she isn’t afraid to wear her Princess Leia costume in public–just ask her husband and three kids. She lives outside Cincinnati in the small town of Loveland, “Sweetheart of Ohio,” where she writes science fiction adventures for Disney Hyperion.…
Read MoreMelissa Landers is a former teacher who left the classroom to pursue other worlds. A proud sci-fi geek, she isn’t afraid to wear her Princess Leia costume in public–just ask her husband and three kids. She lives outside Cincinnati in the small town of Loveland, “Sweetheart of Ohio,” where she writes science fiction adventures for Disney Hyperion. Visit her online at http://melissa-landers.com.
Jennifer Lane
Psychologist/author (psycho author) Jennifer Lane invites you to her world of romance, sports, and suspense! By day she’s a therapist, and by night she’s a writer. She can’t decide which is more fun.
Jen’s first psychological thriller launches in 2018: Twin Sacrifice. Psychologist Matthew Durante risks his own life to save his twin brother’s as their foster father tries to take them down.
Jen loves to create sporty heroines and hot heroes in her college sport romances. Volleyball wonder Lucia Ramirez finds her love match in Blocked despite the glaring political spotlight aimed on her family. In Aced, the second book in the Blocked series, it’s her brother Alejandro’s turn to get lucky in love. Spiked (Blocked #3) completes the series and features Lucia’s younger brother Mateo.
A swimmer and volleyball player in college, Jen writes swimming-based romances as well: Streamline, a military mystery, and the free New Adult novella Swim Recruit.
Stories of redemption interest Jen the most, especially the healing power of love. She is also the author of The Conduct Series, a romantic-suspense trilogy that includes With Good Behavior, Bad Behavior, and On Best Behavior.
Whether writing or reading, Jen loves stories that make her laugh and cry. In her spare time she enjoys exercising, attending book club, and visiting her sisters in Chicago and Hilton Head.
Ruth Emmie Lang
Ruth Emmie Lang was born in Glasgow, Scotland and has the red hair to prove it. When she was four years old, she immigrated to Ohio where she has lived for the last 27 years. She has since lost her Scottish accent, but still has the hair. Ruth currently lives in Columbus, Ohio with her husband and dreams of someday owning a little house in the woods where she can write more books. Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance is her first novel.
Ruth Emmie Lang
Ruth Emmie Lang was born in Glasgow, Scotland and has the red hair to prove it. When she was four years old, she immigrated to Ohio where she has lived for the last 27 years. She has since lost her Scottish accent, but still has the hair. Ruth currently lives in Columbus, Ohio with her husband and dreams of someday owning a little house in the woods where she can write more books. Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance is her first novel.
Lorie Langdon
Lorie Langdon is one half of the author team that writes the best-selling DOON series, a young adult reimagining of the musical Brigadoon. A few years ago, she left her corporate career to satisfy the voices in her head. Now she spends her days tucked into her office, Havanese puppy by her side, working to translate her effusive imagination into the written word.
Lorie has been interviewed on Entertainment Weekly.com and several NPR radio programs, including Lisa Loeb’s national Kid Lit show. The DOON series has been featured on such high profile sites as USAToday.com, Hypable.com, and BroadwayWorld.com. Lorie’s solo debut, GILT HOLLOW, a YA romantic thriller, released September 27th 2016. GILT HOLLOW was recently named by Redbook Magazine as one of the “Books By Women You Must Read This Fall.”
Dave Lange
Dave Lange is a 1975 graduate of Kent State University with a bachelor of arts in journalism news. He also studied political science in graduate school at the University of Akron.
His 40-year newspaper career included positions as features editor and then Sunday Paper editor for the daily Lake County Telegraph, editor of the daily Geauga Times Leader and editor in chief of the weekly Greater Cleveland Real Estate News.
For most of his career, Lange was editor of the weekly Chagrin Valley Times and its sister publications, the Solon Times and the Geauga Times Courier. The Times was honored with the Ohio Newspaper Association’s General Excellence Award as the state’s best weekly newspaper 19 times during his 25 years of leadership. Individually, the ONA awarded him first place in editorial writing 15 times and first place in column writing eight times.
Lange was named the best columnist among all Ohio newspapers in 2011 by the Cleveland Press Club and has received numerous Ohio Excellence in Journalism Awards for editorial and column writing. He also was awarded first place statewide for column writing in 2000 by the Society of Professional Journalists.
Lange served in a support capacity with the Brown Water Navy’s riverine forces in Vietnam from February 1969 to February 1970. As a member of Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 11 from February 1970 until his discharge in December 1971, he made Mediterranean Sea and North Atlantic deployments. He was awarded the Vietnam Service Medal with four campaign stars, Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal, National Defense Service Medal plus Navy Unit Commendation and Meritorious Unit Commendation ribbons.
He is a member of Vietnam Veterans of America, Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion.
Lynn Lauber
Lynn Lauber is an author, editor, ghostwriter, and memoir teacher. She has published three books with WW Norton: White Girls, 21 Sugar Street, and Listen to Me: Writing Life into Meaning, as well as a dozen collaborations with expert authors. Her first two books with Norton center on growing up in northwestern Ohio in the 1960s. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, including Modern Love and Bookend. She has worked as an audiobook editor and abridger for Random House Audiobooks and is a long-time teacher of memoir writing at UCLA online. She now lives in Nyack, New York.
K.B Laugheed
K.B. Laugheed received an MA in English from the University of Dayton, with a concentration in Native American literature. She taught writing at Ivy Tech for twelve years and worked as a writer/editor at a small-town newspaper for twenty-three years. Through both careers, she worked as a freelance writer, publishing numerous articles in national periodicals, and she also wrote and directed a series of plays for community theater. She published her debut novel, The Spirit Keeper, in 2013, and the sequel, The Gift of the Seer, in 2019. Laugheed is an organic gardener, a master naturalist, and an ardent spokesperson for the planet Earth. She belongs to far too many cats.
Rosemary Laurey
USA Today best-selling author Rosemary Laurey is an ex-pat Brit, retired special education teacher, and grandmother who now lives in Ohio and has a wonderful time writing and letting her imagination run riot. Her hobbies are vacuuming, dusting, and cleaning toilets but regrettably the demands of her writing career leave little time to engage in these pursuits.
Read MoreUSA Today best-selling author Rosemary Laurey is an ex-pat Brit, retired special education teacher, and grandmother who now lives in Ohio and has a wonderful time writing and letting her imagination run riot. Her hobbies are vacuuming, dusting, and cleaning toilets but regrettably the demands of her writing career leave little time to engage in these pursuits.