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.
Kristen Lepionka
Kristen Lepionka is the author of the Roxane Weary mystery series. Her debut, The Last Place You Look, won the Shamus Award for Best First P.I. novel and was also nominated for Anthony and Macavity Awards in 2018. The follow-up, WHAT YOU WANT TO SEE, won a Goldie for Best Mystery and a Shamus Award for Best P.I. novel in 2019. She grew up mostly in a public library and could often be found in the adult mystery section well before she was out of middle school. Her writing has been selected for Shotgun Honey, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Grift, and Black Elephant. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her partner and two cats.
Susan Sachs Levine
Susan Levine grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and started her career in marketing with Procter & Gamble. She then moved to Columbus where she became VP of Marketing and Environmental Affairs with SIG, an international packaging company. A wildlife enthusiast, Susan has traveled extensively to learn about endangered species. After the birth of her two children, Susan focused her energy on being a Scout leader, volunteering at a special needs pre-school, and serving as enrichment specialist at her children’s schools .…
Read MoreSusan Levine grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and started her career in marketing with Procter & Gamble. She then moved to Columbus where she became VP of Marketing and Environmental Affairs with SIG, an international packaging company. A wildlife enthusiast, Susan has traveled extensively to learn about endangered species. After the birth of her two children, Susan focused her energy on being a Scout leader, volunteering at a special needs pre-school, and serving as enrichment specialist at her children’s schools . It was in this role that she identified the need for picture books about major Ohio cities. Her first book, Packard Takes Flight: A Bird’s-Eye View of Columbus, Ohio has become a standard in 4th grade classrooms that study Ohio. Her most recent book, Harriett’s Homecoming: A High- Flying Tour of Cincinnati, Ohio highlights all that is special about the Queen City. In both titles, Susan blends her interest in wildlife with her knowledge of Ohio to create books that entertain and teach young children, while being a great resource for teachers and parents.
J. Patrick Lewis
J. Patrick Lewis earned his PhD in Economics at The Ohio State University and taught at Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio. In 1991 he was awarded an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Grant for his adult poetry. He has three grown children. He lives in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, with his wife Susan. Lewis writes full-time, visits elementary schools, keynotes at literature conferences, and presents teachers’ workshops on introducing poetry in the classroom. He is the author of over sixty books for children. Visit his website, http://www.jpatricklewis.com/.
Carolyn Bailey Lewis
Dr. Carolyn Bailey Lewis retired from public media in 2011 following a distinguished 38-year career, the most recent position as director and general manager of WOUB Public Media at Ohio University in Athens where she served for 13 years as the first woman and first African American to lead this entity and the first woman to be Emerita. She was also general manager at WNPB-TV in Morgantown, West Virginia, and was the first African American woman named to head a public television station in the continental United States (1994). She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the 2020 Medal of Merit for Professional Achievement from the Ohio University Alumni Association. Other honors include the Neil S. Bucklew Award for Social Justice at West Virginia University (WVU). Dr. Lewis has served as a consultant to public stations and was elected or appointed to numerous national and state public media committees and boards, including the Association of Public Television Stations’ Board of Trustees in D.C. and the Sesame Workshop in New York City. Dr. Lewis taught in the Scripps College of Communication, is an adjunct professor for Hocking College, serves on several local and state committees, is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, and is an ordained minister.She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Journalism from WVU in Morgantown, the first African American woman to graduate with an undergraduate degree in Journalism from WVU (1971) and she earned a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University. She is an advocate for accessibility and inclusion and consults on those issues. She and her daughter, Caryn M. Bailey, MPA, are co-founders of the Dr. Carolyn Foster Bailey Lewis Family Foundation, a charitable organization which promotes health, wellness, and education for those with acute chronic illnesses and disabilities (www.drcarolynfosterbaileylewisff.org). They also created LifeDay Greeting Cards, Inc. (trademarked), a unique card line set to be launched in October 2021 that celebrates surviving a life-altering event. She has two adult children: Carey Bailey, a professional football coach with the Ottawa, Canada, Redblacks; Caryn, assistant director of development, Major Giving, at Ohio University and a doctoral student; and two granddaughters. Her motto is: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Leigh Lewis
Leigh Lewis is a children’s writer and poet who has been “playing pirates” since she could walk. She does her best work in loud cafes, on long journeys, or in bed, late at night while everyone else sleeps. Her adventures on the high seas have enabled her to call many places home, including Turkey, Greece, Japan, England and Russia, as well as states all over the U.S., and she eventually navigated her way back to her hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Leigh spends her time there dreaming up stories for kids of all ages, buoyed by an amazing crew—her Turkish delight of a husband and their three swashbuckling daughters.
Terri Libenson
Camille Licate
Camille Licate, author of “Bree and Me : A True Story of a Rescue Rooster’s
Journey” is Bree, the Rescue Rooster’s Mom! She is the Founder of
Kids for Positive Change, a multimedia environmental education company
reaching, teaching and inspiring kids to take positive action for animals,
people and the planet, through live events and the Kids for Positive Change
television show, currently airing on WQLN PBS, and online, on PBS Learning
Media. Camille is the creator, writer and host of the Kids for Positive Change
television show, which features the KPC Team, young changemakers from
coast to coast, expert guests, and Bree the Rescue Rooster! When not on
set, Camille and Bree are on stage, as guest speakers, (or in Bree’s case
guest “beaker”) at live Kids for Positive Change school and community
outreach events.
Born in Ashtabula, Ohio, Camille always had a great affinity for animals,
writing, education and entertainment. She graduated from Mercyhurst
University, in Erie, PA, earning a degree in Dance and a minor in
Anthropology. Camille lived in NYC, where she studied and performed with
The Martha Graham Dance Company and worked as a pottery analyst for
The American Museum of Natural History. She was hired as a “dancer who
could act,” by The Shakespeare Theatre, in Washington D.C., and went on to
star in many stage productions before making the coastal leap to Los
Angeles, CA, where she worked as a professional actress and screenwriter,
making her screenwriting debut with her animated children’s film, “IZZIE’S
WAY HOME.” An animal advocate, Camille worked for Orangutan Foundation
International and traveled to Camp Leakey, in Borneo, Indonesia, to film and
study the endangered orangutan. In 2017, Camille founded Kids for Positive
Change, piloting her programs at Ashtabula Area City Schools, in Ashtabula,
Ohio and, over the years, expanding her live event programs to schools in
Ohio and New York. Season one of the Kids for Positive Change television
show, debuted on PBS stations in New York, North Carolina, Michigan,
Pennsylvania and Colorado, in 2021 and 2022, and season two is set to
debut on WQLN, PBS, in Erie, PA, in early 2023.
Camille serves on the board of Kent State University’s Rising Scholars
Program, in Ashtabula, Ohio, and is the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni
award, from Mercyhurst University, in Erie, PA, for Outstanding Service to
the Community. In addition to “Bree and Me,” Camille has authored and
self-published the books, Small Shoes : Outgrowing Old Relationships and
Finding the Right Fit and Breelieve! A Coloring and Picture Book, featuring
Bree, the rescue rooster.
Camille’s three favorite things: Dogs in coats, airport reunions and vegan
donuts. Learn more: https://www.camillelicate.com/about/
DiAndra Liccardo
My name is DiAndra Liccardo. I reside in Twinsburg, Ohio. I am a mother to three beautiful children and I love spending time with my family and creating memories. I enjoy playing the flute and I am currently learning to play the guitar. I am a newly published author of a love poem book titled Butterflies that was released July 2023. My love poem book is filled with poems and quotes that I hope give you butterflies. Yes, I am on the cover of my book. My first passion in life was to be a model. I still enjoy modeling, but do it for fun in my spare time. Writing has always been a passion of mine. Aside from writing I am a passionate teacher. I have my Associate and Bachelors degree in Early Childhood Education. Although this is my first book, I have two other books in the works that I am hoping to publish in the near future.
Deseree Liddell
Deseree Mitchell Liddell was born on October 15, 1925, in Lexington, Mississippi, and grew up under some of the nation’s harshest Jim Crow laws.
In 1951, she and her husband moved to Ravenna, Ohio, becoming residents of Skeels Allotment, one of the local designated-Black areas. There she fought to get basic living conditions such as water and sewer, natural gas lines, and streetlights for her community. She was also instrumental in getting African American teachers and administrators in the Ravenna School System.
She taught school in both Mississippi and Ohio, and in the 1960s, she started a youth group and a senior citizens club in her home. Her goal was to promote community pride, self-awareness, and social, economic, and educational awareness within the African American communities.
Mrs. Liddell was instrumental in getting a community center for the Skeels neighborhood and was the center’s first director. At age 97, she is still active in events at the center.
In 1991, a group of community residents founded the Deseree Liddell Minority Scholarship Fund in her honor. The proceeds of her memoir go to this fund and are awarded to high school seniors to help further their education.
Learn more: https://theportager.com/ravenna-author-shares-her-life-story-from-the-jim-crow-south-to-northern-ohio/
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Collaborator Mary Louise Ruehr was born in Ravenna, Ohio. A graduate of Kent State University, she has spent her career in communications. For 12 years she was a writer and editor at the Record-Courier, the daily newspaper covering Portage County. There she wrote a popular column, “One for the Books,” featuring book reviews and reading-related topics. The column is now featured in ThePortager.com, an online news source.
Theresa Liggins
Theresa E. Liggins has been writing and publishing her works of fiction since 2000 when, of all things, her ballroom dance training became the inspiration of her first two novels, Life is But a Dream and Dance Me to the End of Love. From that point, she knew she had been bitten by the writing bug. Nine novels later, she wrote, You Danced On My Dreams – Beyond the Ballroom to cement the dramatic series; and was further inspired to write her tenth novel, Sis Loyalty, to bring the story full circle. In addition to several new books, Liggins went on to breathe new life into several of her earlier projects including, The Escort Series, as well as, Under the Purple Moon and its sequel, Under the Cover of Darkness.
Although born, raised, and currently lives in Columbus, Ohio, along her journeys, Ms. Liggins has fondly called Northern California and Chicago, Illinois home. Her love for writing and photography keeps her exploring and following her dreams. She has met some interesting characters along the way— some of whom have even inspired the colorful and beloved characters in her novels. Never short of relatable life experiences, wherever her journey takes her, you will find her conjuring up her next compelling page-turners.
Among her many passions is financial literacy. She enjoys educating and empowering consumers with facts on how to raise their credit score. Theresa, also known as The Ultimate Credit Warrior, has spent a decade analyzing and researching credit scoring and has been inducted into the Elusive 850 Club, which consists of only 1.2% of all FICO scores.
To learn more about Theresa E. Liggins and her books, visit http://www.romanticreations.com or follow her on social media.