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.
Adam Rex
Adam Rex is the author and illustrator of more than forty books for kids. These include New York Times bestselling picture books like Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich, School’s First Day of School, (with illustrator Christian Robinson), and Chu’s Day (with author Neil Gaiman). His work has been adapted for film and television. He’s won some awards, including the Margaret Wise Brown Prize in Children’s Literature and the National Cartoonists Society Book Illustration Award. His debut novel was shortlisted for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy. He used to make art for games like Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. Sometimes he still does. He lives in Tucson, Arizona, with his dog, son, and wife. Learn more at https://www.adamrex.com/
Brad Ricca
Brad Ricca is the Edgar-nominated author of six books, including the new graphic novel (with artist Courtney Sieh) Ten Days in a Mad-house and the Ohioana Award winning Super Boys. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio. Learn more at: https://www.trueraiders.com/
Daniel L. Rice
Daniel L. Rice was the Chief Zoologist for the Division of Natural Areas and Preserves within the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. He spent 25 years with the Division documenting populations of Ohio’s rare and endangered species and retired in 2002.
Donald Tunnicliff Rice
Donald Tunnicliff Rice is a freelance writer based in Columbus, Ohio. His essays, short stories, and satires have appeared in periodicals ranging from The New York Times to Scholia Satyrica to the Journal of Caribbean Literature. He is the author or editor of nine published books. Cast in Deathless Bronze: Andrew Rowan, the Spanish-American War, and the Origins of American Empire earned Rice a $5,000 Individual Achievement Award from the Ohio Arts Council. He is currently working on a novel set in Tampa just prior to the start of the Spanish-American War.
Marci Rich
Marci Rich has published poetry, essays, and journalism, and earned honors from organizations and publications as varied as the Academy of American Poets, the Abiko Quarterly for James Joyce Studies (Japan), BlogHer, Huffington Post, and the Press Club of
Cleveland, from which she has twice won Best Freelance Writer in Ohio awards in its All Ohio Excellence in Journalism competitions in 2018 and 2019. The latter awards recognize her local history feature series, “Look
Back, Elyria,” which she writes for the Chronicle-Telegram and which forms the basis of Looking Back at Elyria: A Midwest City at Midcentury, her first nonfiction book. A graduate of Oberlin College, where she earned a bachelor of arts degree in English with a creative writing specialization, Marci has also studied memoir writing at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown,
Massachusetts. She also earned an associate of arts degree from Lorain County Community College. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Theta Kappa, the Authors Guild, the National Society of Newspaper
Columnists, the Press Club of Cleveland, Literary Cleveland, James River Writers, and the Lorain County Historical Society. A chapbook of her poems, Lights and Shadows, was published by Bottom Dog Press in
1985 under her former name, Marci Janas.
Emilie Richards
Emilie Richards has written more than seventy novels, including series romances, romantic suspense, futuristic fantasy, paranormal, mysteries, and single title women’s fiction. Her novel series include the Ministry is Murder, the Shenandoah Album, and the Goddesses Anonymous novels. Richards is also a quilter and has published five Quilting Along With Emilie Richards books to complement the books in her Shenandoah Album series.…
Read MoreEmilie Richards has written more than seventy novels, including series romances, romantic suspense, futuristic fantasy, paranormal, mysteries, and single title women’s fiction. Her novel series include the Ministry is Murder, the Shenandoah Album, and the Goddesses Anonymous novels. Richards is also a quilter and has published five Quilting Along With Emilie Richards books to complement the books in her Shenandoah Album series. Her books have been published in more than sixteen languages in more than twenty countries, and eight have been made into movies for German TV. Richards is a past winner of the Romance Writers of America’s RITA Award, the highest prize given to romance authors. She grew up in Florida but lived in Cleveland for twelve years where she raised her children and continued her prolific writing career. Richards has worked as a therapist in a mental health center, a parent services coordinator for families enrolled in Head Start, and in several pastoral counseling centers. Married to her college sweetheart, Richards recently returned to live in Florida. Visit Emilie’s website, http://emilierichards.com/.
Natalie D. Richards
New York Times Bestselling Author Natalie D. Richards is the author of nine “page-turning thrillers” (School Library Journal), including Five Total Strangers (2020) and Seven Dirty Secrets (2021). Four Found Dead (2023) is her ninth bone-chilling novel. Her first middle-grade novel is called 15 Secrets to Survival and has been hailed as, “a teamwork oriented update to Hatchet.” A champion of literacy and aspiring authors, Richards is a frequent speaker at schools, libraries, and writing groups. She lives in Ohio with her three children and (very) large dog, Wookiee. Visit her at http://www.nataliedrichards.com.
Joyce Richardson
Joyce Richardson received her MA in creative writing from Ohio University. She taught high school and junior high English and drama in Athens County, Ohio for over twenty years. Her poetry collections include The Reader, Sailing without a Sail, and Delia’s Gone. Joyce’s Appalachian novel, On Sunday Creek, was written with the help of an Ohio Individual artist grant.
The first art mystery novel, Nude Descending a Staircase (Museitup Publishing) came out in the spring of 2011. Book 2 of the museum mystery series, Nude with Red Hat, was published as a paperback in November, 2016. Joyce is currently working on her third mystery, Reclining Nude.
Joyce enjoys traveling with her husband, Phil, also a writer, and painting Chagall-like images whenever she finds herself in San Miguel, Mexico. Her website is MuseumMystery.com
Lisa Karon Richardson
Influenced by books like The Secret Garden and The Little Princess, Lisa Karon Richardson’s early stories were heavy on boarding schools and creepy houses. Now, even though she’s (mostly) grown-up she still loves a healthy dash of adventure in any story she creates, even her real-life story. She’s been a missionary to the Seychelles and Gabon and now that she and her husband are back in America, they are tackling a new adventure–starting a church planting Central Ohio. Lisa is the author of several published novellas and novels. You can find her online at http://www.lisakaronrichardson.com and http://www.inkwellinspirations.com.
David Rickert
David Rickert is an educator as well as an author and illustrator of comics. After receiving his teaching degree from Ohio State University, David had an itch to create comics for education. Working with the Teachers Pay Teachers marketplace, teachers around the world have embraced his comics as an effective way to teach English to young readers.