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.
Florenza Lee
Florenza Lee is an author, publisher, mindset coach, transformational speaker, radio talk show host, Master Storyteller, wife, and mother. Her Children’s books focus on Social-Emotional Learning and Emotional Intelligence. The tagline for her publishing company is, “…feeding your mind one book at a time” and her books fulfills the mission. Her dynamic characters immediately capture the readers’ attention, and the lessons remain long after the book is closed. Florenza is a proud member of SCBWI, AALBC, IBPA, REACH, Inc., and an Alum of Ashford University; she attends Grand Canyon University. Several of her titles are translated for Spanish, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Arabic, Hindi, and Mandarin. Coming soon are German, French, and Italian. She and her husband, CSM (Ret US Army) Trefus Lee, have been married for nearly 39 years and reside in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. Their daughters, Jessica and Missy, call Las Vegas, Nevada, and Chagrin Falls, Ohio, home. Learn more at her website: https://florenza.org/
Vicki Leigh
Vicki Leigh grew up in a small suburb of Akron, Ohio, where she learned to read by the age of four and considered being sent to her room for punishment as an opportunity to dive into another book. By the sixth grade, Vicki penned her first full-length screenplay. If she couldn’t be a writer, Vicki would be a Hunter (think Dean and Sam Winchester) or a Jedi. Her favorite place on earth is Hogwarts (she refuses to believe it doesn’t exist), and her favorite dreams include solving cases
alongside Sherlock Holmes. She’s a previous acquisitions editor for Curiosity Quills Press and also writes as Tori Rigby. Visit her online at http://www.vleighwrites.com.
Cathy Cultice Lentes
Cathy Cultice Lentes recently retired from teaching and working with students with disabilitie sas part of the Special Education/Psychology team in Meigs County, Ohio. In 2016, she published a poetry chapbook, Getting The Mail (Finishing Line Press). In addition to poetry, Lentes writes creative nonfiction and a variety of works for children. She earned her MFA in Writing for Young People from the Solstice Program in 2013. Wendy McVicker and Cathy Cultice Lentes admired each other’s work from afar before becoming good friends and have often published in the same literary journals and anthologies, most recently, I Thought I Heard a Cardinal Sing, Ohio’s Appalachian voices (Sheila-Na-GigEditions, 2022).
Crissie Ann Leonard
God found Crissie when she wasn’t looking for Him. At first, she ran from him but he continued to pursue her. After a few years, she found herself in a difficult and dark season and that is when they met. He provided the light to illuminate her dark season and she promised to follow him wherever he wanted to take her.
He called her to use the pain and the journey through the dark season as her message. That is when Letters to My Father was born. Crissie writes Christian fiction books to show people God’s presence in their lives and all around them.
She lives in Blacklick, Ohio with her family and her cat, Smokey.
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.