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.
Donna MacMeans
Award winning author Donna MacMeans made a wrong turn many years ago when she majored in Accounting at Ohio State University. What the heck was she thinking? Balancing books just can’t compete with crafting plots and inventing memorable characters. While still a licensed CPA in Ohio with an active tax practice, she also writes witty and seductive Victorian historicals and the occasional time-travel.
MacMeans’s books have won numerous awards including the Golden Heart from Romance Writers of America (RWA), and the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award for Historical Love & Laughter. Her books consistently receive high praise and glowing reviews and have been published in Japanese, Deutsch, Turkish and Norwegian. Her debut novel was even turned into a manga graphic novel. Who would have imagined that! She’s published six historicals with the Berkley imprint of Penguin Books, a romantic suspense with Samhain Publishing and a rollicking reverse time-travel via independent publishing. A French charm teacher from 1853 suddenly lands in modern day New Orleans in Charming the Professor. It’s a long way from debits and credits.
But maybe not that far…she’s also the current Treasurer for RWA, the recipient of a 2013 RWA service award and the 2014 Pro mentor award. She’s taught Taxes for Writers at RWA University, at the national convention, and at numerous chapters across the country and Plotting workshops for the Nora Roberts Writing Institute. When not at her keyboard, Donna enjoys painting, traveling, and creating luscious alcoholic desserts. An avid reader, she uses the analytical skills learned as an accountant to analyze novels in an effort to constantly improve her own craft – and then teaches those skills in workshops around the country. You can find her blogging with the popular blog group, Romance Bandits. A resident of Columbus, Ohio, she lives with her husband of forty+ years, a daughter who does all the cooking, and a shy vampire-cat with a taste for ankles. It’s never a dull day in the MacMeans household. Please contact her at DonnaMacMeans.com
Beth Macy
Beth Macy is a Virginia-based journalist, the author of Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America, and an executive producer and cowriter on Hulu’s Peabody Award-winning “Dopesick” series.
Erica Magnus
A first generation American, Erica Magnus grew up in rural Connecticut’s natural beauty, delighting in her three freedoms; exploring nature’s wonders barefoot whenever possible, fulfilling her deep love for drawing in color or with sticks in the dirt if that was all at hand, and satisfying her endless passion for stories. Her Norwegian family kept their European culture and values their cornerstone through good times and bad. For them, creative expression was assumed and expected. ! Later, these forces all came together when Erica began her career in publishing. Picture books proved a good home for her wide range of freelance art skills as author and illustrator, and illustrator for others, for over 22 years. She continued to write and illustrate them until her passions for stories drew her to film as storyboard, concept, and creature design artist. Moving to LA to work and live led to exciting creative collaborations in television. She also applied these skills to graphic novel development projects for professional writers. ! Teaching art classes throughout her career continues, providing many opportunities to contribute what she has learned. But most of all, Erica is happy to return to Athens County, Ohio, where she lives again near family and grandchildren, good neighbors and old friends. Her journey brought her back to publishing too. Now her three freedoms bring daily delights once again and a new old way to share them.
Daniel Mainzer
I am 78 years of age and have been a photographer since I was 12. In the meantime, I collected a Political Science degree from Muskingum University in 1968 and worked at various jobs till 1976 when Firestone employed me as a photographer. After four years and some months, I stepped off the deck of that sinking ship into a photographers job at Stouffer's foods.…
Read MoreI am 78 years of age and have been a photographer since I was 12. In the meantime, I collected a Political Science degree from Muskingum University in 1968 and worked at various jobs till 1976 when Firestone employed me as a photographer. After four years and some months, I stepped off the deck of that sinking ship into a photographers job at Stouffer’s foods. That lasted almost three years, and next I became a photographer at General Tire, which transformed itself into GenCorp, a new corporate structure. This turned out to be important because they urged me to start my own studio after 4+ years by letting me and 300 others go after a takeover bid. That was 1987, and I hit the ground running, freelancing for GenCorp and adding many clients to date.
An unexpected benefit from the 10 years in the rubber industry was a large body of work documenting the life of the workers and the destruction of the factories. Being a self-taught and photographer, I felt compelled to do this and felt I was operating in the same vein as Lewis Hine, Paul Strand and others who documented the world around them. At least there is a record of the factory work and the people who did it. Some of this photography has been published (1998) in a book ‘Wheels of Fortune’, a history of the rubber industry in Akron published by the Akron university Press. It is my hope that this body of work will be recognized and find a permanent home so people will remember their legacy.
Most of my work is commercial: studio product shots, location events, industrial, advertising and auto racing photography. The racing photography started when General Tire began a motorsports program in 1984, and is now a third of our current business. A branch of the business is panoramic stadium shots for professional and collegiate football and baseball. This started when my wife took a print of the Indians baseball stadium, Jacobs Field, to work and came home with 50+ print orders. I was the official photographer for the All American Soap Box Derby from 1980-2012.
Throughout my career I have always photographed landscapes, flowers, and the world in general. Being a self- taught photographer has allowed me to enjoy it as an avocation, in addition to my vocation; something I will always do. From 1969 to 1976, I assigned myself to make a finished b/w print a day and with few exceptions stuck to this routine until accepting my position at Firestone.
Landscapes have always been a relaxation to me even though they demand scouting, great light, technique, and patience. My commercial clients purchased the few landscapes that we displayed in the studio, and thus the move into gallery sales, shows and some contests.
I would like to have viewers feel as if they were standing next to me as i first see and photograph a scene. It is like we experience the impact of what we are seeing together. This is not about me in any way, but what i want to share with the viewer in terms of emotion, the beauty of the world we live in and whatever we feel viewing what i have done.
Amit Majmudar
AMIT MAJMUDAR is a poet, novelist, essayist, translator, and the former first Poet Laureate of Ohio. He works as a diagnostic and nuclear radiologist and lives in Westerville, Ohio, with his wife and three children. He is the author of seventeen books so far in a variety of categories, with different bodies of work published in the United States and in India.
POETRY: His poetry collections include 0’, 0’ (Northwestern, 2009), shortlisted for the Norma Faber First Book Award; and Heaven and Earth (2011, Storyline Press), which won the Donald Justice Prize. These volumes were followed by Dothead (Knopf, 2016) and What He Did in Solitary (Knopf, 2020). His poems have won the Pushcart Prize and have appeared in the Norton Introduction to Literature, The New Yorker, and numerous Best American Poetry anthologies as well as journals and magazines across the United States, UK, India, and Australia. Majmudar also edited, at Knopf’s invitation, a political poetry anthology entitled Resistance, Rebellion, Life: 50 Poems Now. Majmudar’s forthcoming volume, a hybrid of prose, drama, and poetry, is Three Metamorphoses (Orison Books, 2024).
NONFICTION: Majmudar’s essays have appeared in Marginalia at the Los Angeles Review of Books, where he is a contributing editor, as well as The Best American Essays 2018, The New York Times, and the Times of India, among several other publications. His collection of essays, focusing on Indian religious philosophy, history, and mythology, is Black Avatar and Other Essays (Acre Books, 2023). Twin A: A Memoir (Slant Books, 2023) is a memoir, in prose and verse, about his son’s struggle with congenital heart disease.
FICTION: Majmudar’s work as a novelist includes two works of historical fiction centered around the 1947 Partition of India, Partitions (Holt/Metropolitan, 2011) and The Map and the Scissors (HarperCollins India, 2022). His first children’s book also focuses on Indian history and is entitled Heroes the Colour of Dust (Puffin India, 2022). Majmudar has also penned a tragicomic, magical realist fable of Indian soldiers during World War I, Soar (Penguin India, 2020). The Abundance (Holt/Metropolitan, 2013), by contrast, is a work of contemporary realism exploring Indian-American life. Majmudar’s long-form fiction has garnered rave reviews from NPR’s All Things Considered, The Wall Street Journal, Good Housekeeping, and The Economist, as well as starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist; his short fiction won a 2017 O. Henry Prize.
MYTHOLOGY: Majmudar’s work in Hindu mythology includes a polyphonic Ramayana retelling, Sitayana (Penguin India, 2019), and The Book of Vows (Penguin India, 2023), the first volume in a trilogy that retells the ancient epic poem, Mahabharata. The forthcoming volumes are entitled The Book of Discoveries and The Book of Killings. He has also composed a forthcoming original mythological story cycle called The Later Adventures of Hanuman (Penguin India, 2024).
TRANSLATION: His work as a translator includes Godsong: A Verse Translation of the Bhagavad-Gita, with Commentary (Knopf, 2018), available both in the United States and India.
Charles Malone
Charles Malone grew up in rural Northeastern Ohio, headed west to the Rockies, came back to the Great Lakes, and has loved all of it. His first full-length collection, Working Hypothesis, is out with Finishing Line Press in 2020. His chapbook “Questions About Circulation” was published by Driftwood Press as part of the Adrift Chapbook Series. He edited the collection “A Poetic Inventory of Rocky Mountain National Park” with Wolverine Farm Publishing and has work recently published or forthcoming in Hotel Amerika, The Best of Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac, The Sugar House Review, The Dunes Review, and Saltfront. Charles now works at the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University coordinating community outreach programs.
Dr. Peter Mansoor
Dr. Peter Mansoor, Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired), is the General Raymond E. Mason, Jr. Chair of Military History at The Ohio State University. He assumed this position in September 2008 after a 26-year career in the U.S. Army that culminated in his service as the executive officer to General David Petraeus, the Commanding General of Multi-National Force-Iraq.…
Read MoreDr. Peter Mansoor, Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired), is the General Raymond E. Mason, Jr. Chair of Military History at The Ohio State University. He assumed this position in September 2008 after a 26-year career in the U.S. Army that culminated in his service as the executive officer to General David Petraeus, the Commanding General of Multi-National Force-Iraq. A 1982 distinguished graduate of the United States Military Academy, Col. Mansoor served in a variety of command and staff positions in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East during his military career. Dr. Mansoor holds a Masters and Ph.D. in military history from The Ohio State University, a Masters in Strategic Studies from the Army War College, and a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Military Academy. He is the author of The GI Offensive in Europe: The Triumph of American Infantry Divisions, 1941-1945, winner of the Society for Military History distinguished book award and the Army Historical Society distinguished book award in 2000; and Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander’s War in Iraq, winner of the Ohioana Library Association nonfiction book of the year award in 2009. His most recent work is Surge, a finalist for the inaugural Guggenheim-Lehrman Military History Prize.
Paul Many
Maybe it’s happened to you: Waking from troubled dreams, you find you’ve turned into a scaly, scary T. rex. No? Lucky. For this is exactly what happens to Gregory in my picture book, Dinomorphosis. And this on the very day of his big class presentation, no less! Gregory tries to make believe that nothing is wrong, blundering through with his clumsy, scaly body and voice the level of ROAR, until his classmates and an understanding teacher finally come to his rescue.
Paul Many wrote Dinomorphosisis for those of us who don’t have a good day every day and are sometimes surprised about who we see in the mirror. He’s the author of five previous children’s books, one of which won a Los Angeles Times’ Best Children’s Book of the Year, and has appeared on the NBC national Today show promoting another. His hardcover YA books have been reprinted in paper and translated into three languages including Danish (!). He has an MFA in creative writing and a chapbook of poems among other publications. His PhD dissertation, “The Effect of Advertising on Consumer Press Credibility” has sold two copies.
Jacqueline Marino
Jacqueline Marino teaches feature writing and other courses in the magazine sequence at Kent State University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Her nonfiction stories and essays have appeared in many publications including Cleveland Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, and River Teeth: A Journal of Narrative Nonfiction.
Stephen Markley
Stephen Markley is an author, screenwriter, and journalist. His previous books include the memoir “Publish This Book” and the travelogue “Tales of Iceland.” His short fiction, interviews, essays, and journalism can be found scattered across the internet.