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.
- You are searching within category(ies): Young Adult
Martin Gitlin
Martin Gitlin is an award-winning journalist and author based in Cleveland. He has had more than 130 books published since 2006. Most were written for students of all grade levels in the realms of sports, history/social studies, pop culture and biographies. Marty has also authored many very successful trade books, including The Great American Cereal Book and the highly acclaimed Powerful Moments in Sports: The Most Significant Sporting Events in American History. He is quite proud of his newest book, titled A Celebration of Animation: The 100 Greatest Cartoon Characters in Television History. Marty won more than 45 awards as a newspaper journalist before focusing on freelance writing. He also covered the Cleveland Browns for CBS Sports from 2009 to 2012 and is an experienced and fun presenter at schools and libraries.
Shari Goldhagen
Shari Goldhagen is the author of the adult novels IN SOME OTHER WORLD, MAYBE (St. Martin’s Press, 2015) and FAMILY AND OTHER ACCIDENTS (Doubleday, 2006), as well as the YA novel 100 DAYS OF CAKE (Atheneum, 2016). A fellow at both Yaddo and MacDowell and the winner of Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant, Shari has a BSJ from Northwestern University and an MFA from The Ohio State University. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in outlets including, Salon, Cosmopolitan, Prism International, Esquire.com, Conjunctions, Small Spiral Notebook, Indiana Review, and KGB Bar Lit, and she regularly writers about pop culture, travel and relationships for publications including Us Weekly, Life & Style Weekly, Penthouse, NY Metro, and DaySpa. Shari has taught creative writing at OSU, Mediabistro, and the Gotham Writers Workshop. You can find out about her at Sharigoldhagen.com (when she remembers to update her website).
Suzanne Goldsmith
Suzanne Goldsmith graduated from Harvard University and has worked as the marketing director for a foundation, an associate producer for public television documentaries, a newspaper reporter and freelance magazine writer, and a team leader in a youth community service program. Her first book, A City Year, is the true story of a year in a youth community service program.
Suzanne’s first middle-grade novel, Washashore, was the winner of the 2014 Green Earth Book Award, YA category, and was shortlisted for the Ohioana Book Award, Children’s category. In the book fourteen-year-old Clementine has left her city life in Boston to spend the winter on Martha’s Vineyard. She’s what the locals call a “washashore”: someone who has come to live on the island but isn’t from there. An outsider. Clem doesn’t have any friends and doesn’t fit in. Her mom and dad aren’t getting along. Coco, her friend, is three hours away. But then Clem finds a fallen osprey on the beach and gets involved with the effort to save these endangered birds. When she meets a lonely boy named Daniel, everything changes . . .
Suzanne is currently working on a second novel, set in an abandoned ski lodge in southern Ohio. She visits schools, libraries and summer programs to teach writing workshops and to talk about the writing process. She is also available to do joint visits with a raptor specialist who brings live birds into the classroom. She lives with her family in the Columbus area, and can be found on the web at http://www.suzanne-goldsmith.com.
Sandra Gurvis
Sandra Gurvis (http://www.sandragurvis.com) is the author of 18 commercially published books and hundreds of magazine and web articles. Her titles include DAY TRIPS FROM COLUMBUS, 3rd ed.; OHIO CURIOSITIES, 2nd ed.; CAREERS FOR NONCONFORMISTS, which was a selection of the Quality Paperback Book Club; and more. Along having her books featured on radio, television and in newspapers and magazines, PARIS HILTON: A BIOGRAPHY was translated into Chinese and her second novel, COUNTRY CLUB WIVES was optioned as a television series by Insight Productions out of Toronto, Canada.
Recent titles include 111 PLACES IN COLUMBUS THAT YOU MUST NOT MISS, MYTHS AND MYSTERIES OF OHIO and a re-issuing of her first novel, THE PIPE DREAMERS. Her most current project, THREE RINGLING CIRCUS: THE HISTORY OF SARASOTA, FLORIDA AND THE FAMOUS RINGLING BROTHERS is forthcoming from Pineapple/Rowman in early 2024. She is currently at work on DOING HARD TIME IN SENIORVILLE, the first of a series of satire/mysteries set in The Villages of Florida.
A freelance writer for over 30 years, Sandra has written corporate profiles and technical articles for clients such as Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Ohio Health, Merrill Lynch, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and the Association of American Medical Colleges and publications such as Selling Power, Creativity, ASRT Scanner, Optical Technology, B’nai B’rith magazine, Currents and AAA Today. Additionally, she has created Web content for Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, Palm Beach Media, worth.com and many others. Along with rewriting and editing books on medical and business topics, she prepares newsletters and assists in the writing and publication of magazines and web content covering a variety of healthcare and business issues.
A major aspect of her work has been on the Vietnam protests and their aftereffects. Her nonfiction title, WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWER CHILDREN GONE? delves into all facets of the Vietnam era, from tracking the student protest and conservative movements to comparing the controversy surrounding Vietnam and the Middle East. Her novel, THE PIPE DREAMERS is a fictional exploration of the late ’60s/early 70s, mostly set in the small college town of Hampton, Ohio.
She has also written on this topic for the Ohio State Alumni Magazine, People and many other publications. Other bylines and credits include People, YM, Entertainment Weekly, Fiction Writer, Woman’s World, Parenting, The World and I, Coast to Coast, USA Weekend, Chicago Tribune, as well as travel articles, promotional materials and advertorials. Along with being selected for residencies and fellowships at the Mary Anderson Center in Mt. St. Francis, Indiana; the Vermont Writers Studio in Johnston; and receiving grants from the National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) and the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas as well as certification from the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) Sandra is a longtime member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA). She lectures frequently on writing and her books and lives in Bradenton, Florida.
Krysten Lindsay Hager
Who knew all those embarrassing, cringe-y moments in middle school and high school could turn into a career? And who would have thought that daydreaming in math class would pay off down the road? Krysten Lindsay Hager writes about friendship, self-esteem, fitting in, frenemies, crushes, fame, first loves, and values. Her work includes YA contemporary, middle grade fiction, and adult and young adult rom-coms. She is the author of True Colors, Best Friends…Forever?, Next Door to a Star, Landry in Like, and Competing with the Star (The Star Series: Book 2), Dating the It Guy, Can Dreams Come True, and In Over Her Head: Lights, Camera, Anxiety. Krysten’s work has been featured in USA Today, The Flint Journal, the Grand Haven Tribune, the Beavercreek Current, the Bellbrook Times, Springfield News-Sun, Grand Blanc View, Dayton Daily News and on Living Dayton. She received her BA in English and master’s degree in liberal studies from the University of Michigan-Flint.
Steve Harpster
Steve Harpster lives in Cincinnati Ohio and travels the country teaching kids how to draw, create, and Imagine.
Fern Haught
Fern Haught (they/them) is an author, illustrator, and adjunct professor based in Cleveland Heights, OH. They love crafting stories incorporating queer characters and their relationships, often set in magical worlds. Their two cats, Binx and Honey, are often looking over their shoulder while they work, and do a great job of being honorary co-authors. When they aren’t creating books they decorate cookies at a local bakery and do background painting for games. The Baker and the Bard is their debut graphic novel!
Leanna Renee Hieber
Leanna Renee Hieber is an actress, playwright, ghost tour guide, and an award-winning, bestselling author of 16 novels and non-fiction books for Tor and Kensington Books such as the Strangely Beautiful, Eterna Files, and Spectral City series. She writes and narrates several speculative fiction series for Scribd.com. Her non-fiction book co-authored with Andrea Janes, A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America’s Ghosts, was a Bram Stoker Award finalist for “Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction”. Leanna’s Strangely Beautiful series became a 3-time Prism Award winner and Darker Still was a Daphne du Maurier award finalist. A licensed NYC tour guide working for Boroughs of the Dead, Leanna has been featured on TV shows like Mysteries at the Museum and Beyond the Unknown discussing Victorian Spiritualism. She gives lectures and theatrical presentations around the country at conventions and prestigious institutions such as New York University, Miami University, the Cambridge Public Library, Morbid Anatomy and more, focusing on paranormal themes and 19th century women’s history. http://www.leannareneehieber.com.