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.
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Tracey Dils
Tracey Dils is the author of more than 50 books for young readers in a variety of genres: picture books, middle grade fiction and nonfiction, and biography. Tracey has been awarded multiple awards, including the Parent’s Choice Award and the Ohioana Award in Children’s Literature. She has held a number of high-level editorial positions, including publisher for McGraw-Hill Children’s Publishing, marketing director for Ohio State University Press, and editor-in-chief for Willowisp Press. Tracey has served as an expert writing consultant for various publishing endeavors, including Guideposts for Kids, several elementary and college textbook companies, and as a creative writing specialist for Thurber House.
Dils considers inspiring beginning writers as her most important work. She has taught writing for children at the university level and through correspondence schools across the country. She is a featured speaker at writers’ conferences and workshops. In addition to her work with aspiring adult writers, Dils has taught writing to children in a number of settings and is a frequent guest author in elementary and middle schools.
Tracey graduated from the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio. She lives with her husband, Richard Herrold, in Columbus, Ohio.
Julie Drew
Julie Drew is an Ohio-based writer and English professor who has published seven books, multiple academic and national media articles, as well as new fiction reviews. In addition to teaching creative writing at the graduate and undergraduate levels, she has offered writing workshops in the Midwest and New England.
Julie earned a BA in Creative Writing, MA in English literature, and PhD in Rhetoric and Writing from the University of South Florida. She is currently a Professor of English at The University of Akron where she teaches creative writing, cultural studies, and women & film.
Her most recent work, The Tesla Effect trilogy, is a young adult series comprised of Glimpse (2014), Run (2014), and Breathe (June 2015). The first two books in the trilogy were included on Ohio.com’s list of Memorable Books of 2014.
Julie’s novels have been reviewed in Publishers Weekly, Library Journal (her novel Daughter of Providence received a coveted Red Star Review), Kirkus, Booklist, Historical Novels Review (where Daughter of Providence received an Editor’s Choice designation), Cleveland Plain Dealer, Providence Journal, and Akron Beacon Journal.
Having grown up in Florida and then lived in Ohio for more than a decade, Julie and her husband now happily spend part of every year near the ocean in Rhode Island. She loves dogs, loves to travel and hike, is an amateur foodie and unabashed TV enthusiast, and enjoys outdoorsy volunteer work in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Visit her at http://www.juliedrew.com.
R.C. Durkee
R.C. Durkee is both a writer and an artist who blends her love of history, nature and the rural life into her creative projects. The sixth generation to have lived on the family’s 182 year old farm, she has raised horses, sheep, cows and crops. She is also an avid gardener.
An award winning artist, her artwork has appeared on magazine covers, in art books and in art galleries in Ohio and beyond. She has written and published short stories and essays for over twenty-five years, and her debut novel, published in 2014, is the historical fiction, RUM RUN set during 1920’s Prohibition. It has received many rave reviews including Midwest Book Review, the Historical Novel Society and the Great Lakes Historical Society. She painted the book’s dramatic cover design at the suggestion of her publisher.
RUM RUN was selected to participate in the 2015 Ohioana Book Festival in Columbus, Ohio where she participated in a panel discussion on historical fiction and attended a reception at the governor’s residence. She has done many programs on her novel and Lake Erie Prohibition history at libraries, societies and continuing education courses as well as book and writing club talks.
Her interests are historical places and buildings, classics cars, hiking and biking and star- gazing. She particularly enjoys studying 17th though early 20th Century American history and visiting related sites with her husband who shares her interest in the the Civil War. For more information about Durkee, go to her website at rcdurkee.com.
Kathy S. Elasky
Kathy S. Elasky is a retired teacher/counselor from Southeast Ohio. She lives on a small farm with her husband, two dogs, several squirrels and the occasional raccoon or possum. Writing children’s books has been her goal from the time her children were little. She started by creating books for her grandchildren. Now she is able to share Pudgy with many others. Besides writing, Kathy loves her family, church activities, nature, reading, and crafting of all sorts. Interacting with people at speaking engagements and book events is one of her newest passions.
Tameka N. Ellington
Tameka N. Ellington is a fashion scholar, educator, and expert on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. The author of several articles and two books, she is the co-curator of the award-winning exhibition TEXTURES: the history and art of Black hair.
Cantly Elliott
Cantly Elliott is an author and creator of Blaze Review, a media group based in Columbus, OH. Cantly published his first book, Benched: Underrated Players and Teams in History in 2023. His Blaze Review platform hosts several podcasts centered around sports, music and movies. He was inspired to write his book after watching ESPN’s docuseries, The last Dance. There have been a lot of great players throughout the history of the NBA that never won a championship because of greats like Michael Jordan, LeBron James, and others. Elliott felt it was important to tell their story and highlight them.
In his spare time, Cantly enjoys working on his business, spending time with family and friends, watching sports, and shopping for records and books.
Mary Ellis
Mary Ellis is a former schoolteacher turned USA Today bestselling author who’s written twenty-six novels including Amish fiction, historical romance, and suspense. Her first mystery, Midnight on the Mississippi, was a finalist for the RT Magazine’s Reviewer’s Choice Award and a finalist for the Daphne du Maurier Award. Her latest series is the Bourbon Tour Mysteries from Severn House. Book two, One Hundred Proof Murder released August 3, 2021. Her latest Amish novella is Missing available on Amazon Kindle. She enjoys gardening and bicycling and lives in Ohio with her husband and dog. http://www.maryellis.net or http://www.facebook.com/Mary.Ellis.Author
Annamarie Fernyak
Annamarie Fernyak is the founder of the mindful education company, Mind Body Align. She is an award-winning community leader who lives and works to make life better in downtown Mansfield, Ohio. She is the author of The Right Side of Happiness, and is an educator, speaker, podcast guest, and writer on building resilience and living mindfully, in the present moment as the path to a life of true happiness and contentment. Mind Body Align teaches hundreds of students and educators each year how to pay focused attention, practice kindness, and share gratitude.
Annamarie is the co-author of a 16-book series for children and is the vision behind the main character, Tia, a butterfly, and Dwight, a grasshopper, two of the delightful inhabitants of a special garden labyrinth. These books teach children skills of self-regulation, how to navigate disagreement, to manage anxiety, and more. This series is set in a real-life labyrinth at Annamarie’s farm in Lucas, Ohio.
Michelle Fishpaw
Michelle Fishpaw began writing Claire’s Voice – her first book – more than a decade ago following the injury of her, daughter, Claire, who was shaken by a babysitter in her home town of Columbus, Ohio. After being in the teaching field for 20 years, she chose to pursue another career and is currently a licensed massage therapist. Michelle remains a passionate advocate in creating hope and helping others, and currently lives in Narragansett, Rhode Island. She enjoys walks on the beach, collecting sea glass and shells along the nearby coastline. For more information visit: michellefishpaw.com
Charlene Fix
Charlene Fix, an Emeritus English Professor at Columbus College of Art and Design, taught the writing of essays and poems, American Literature, Film and Literature, and special topics courses she created like The Artist as Protagonist, Word and Image, and Road Trip! The Picaresque Novel (and Some Films). She chaired the English and Philosophy Department for about ten years.
A member of The House of Toast Poets, a workshop and performance group, she has received poetry fellowships from both the Ohio and the Greater Columbus Arts Councils, and has published poems in various literary magazines, among them Poetry, Literary Imagination, Hotel Amerika, The Journal, The Manhattan Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Rattle, and The Cincinnati Review. She won the Robert H. Winner Memorial Award and the Louis Hammer Memorial Award from The Poetry Society of America and was a finalist once for The Lyric Poem Award. Her poem, “They Thought Our Sins Were Bread,” (in Jewgirl) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by The Manhattan Review. Charlene is the author of two chapbooks: Mischief (Pudding House 2003) & Charlene Fix: Greatest Hits (Kattywompus 2012), and four full length collections: Flowering Bruno, a dog-besotted collection of poems with illustrations by Susan Josephson (XOXOX Press 2006 and finalist for the 2007 Ohioana Book Award in Poetry), Frankenstein’s Flowers, poems inspired by myth, books, and films (CW Books 2014), Taking a Walk in My Animal Hat, poems inhabited by the four-legged and winged nations (Bottom Dog Press, 2018), and Jewgirl (shortlisted for the Sexton Prize from Eyewear Publishing; Broadstone Books 2023), as well as a prose/homage, Harpo Marx as Trickster, a critical study of Harpo in the thirteen Marx Brothers’ films (McFarland 2013). She has published two critical essays: “Yes and Yass: Dean Moriarty’s Ecstatic and Lugubrious Affirmations in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road” (Xavier Review, February 2014), and “The Lost Father in Death of a Salesman” (Michigan Quarterly Review, summer 2008). Her poem, “What Dreams May Be” appears on the Academy of American Poets website.
Charlene is an activist for peace and social justice. Mother of three, grandmother of two, she co-coordinates Hospital Poets at the Ohio State University and Nationwide Children’s Hospitals.