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.
Emma Carlson Berne
Emma Carlson Berne has written over eighty titles for children and young adults on a variety of fiction and non-fiction topics. She often works with American Girl Publishing and has written five books of historical fiction and non-fiction for that press, focusing on the characters of Kaya, Josefina, Melody, and Samantha. Recently, Emma has written a new Star Wars series for Disney-Lucasfilm Press (Forces of Destiny: Daring Adventures 1-4, 2017).
In addition, Emma has published four YA novels with Simon Pulse (Flirt #4: Sunset Ranch, 2014< , Never Let You Go, 2012, Still Waters, 2011, Hard to Get, 2010), as well as ghostwriting YA thrillers and romances with Alloy Entertainment under the names Hailey Abbott and Elizabeth Woods. Emma often writes historical biography and has published biographies of Sacagawea, Christopher Columbus, and Helen Keller. Emma also writes sports fiction under the name Jake Maddox for Stone Arch Press, and many other non-fiction titles for Capstone Press, Lerner Publishing Group, Rosen Publishing, and others.
Connie Berry
Connie Berry is the author of the Kate Hamilton Mysteries, set in the UK and featuring an American antiques dealer with a gift for solving crimes. Like her protagonist, Connie was raised by antiques dealers who instilled in her a passion for history, fine art, and travel. In 2019 Connie won the IPPY Gold Medal for Mystery and was a finalist for the Agatha Award’s Best Debut. She’s a member of Mystery Writers of America and is on the board of the Guppies and her local Sisters in Crime chapter. Besides reading and writing mysteries, Connie loves history, foreign travel, cute animals, and all things British. She lives in Ohio with her husband and adorable Shih Tzu, Emmie. You can learn more about Connie and her books at her website http://www.connieberry.com.
Katie Berta
Katie Berta’s debut poetry collection, retribution forthcoming, won the Hollis Summers Prize and was published by Ohio University Press in March. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Southern Indiana Review, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, The Cincinnati Review, The Yale Review, The Iowa Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Southeast Review, and Sixth Finch, among other magazines. She has received residencies from Millay Arts, Ragdale, and The Hambidge Center, fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center and the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, and an Iowa Review Award. She is a visiting assistant professor at Oberlin College.
Jesse Bethea
Jesse is a journalist, author, videographer, and the winner of the 2019 Great Novel Contest. Born and raised in Fairfax, VA, he to moved to Ohio in 2010.
In 2014, Jesse moved to Columbus and immediately started writing for ColumbusUnderground.com, where his work has been recognized several times by the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists. By 2015, he was working for The Ohio Channel (Ohio’s version of C-SPAN) as an assistant producer.
On the rare occasions when Jesse gives himself a break from writing, he enjoys hiking, true crime podcasts, and reading, specifically non-fiction disaster/survival narratives. If there’s a situation where people have had to eat each other, he’s interested in reading more about it.
Visit his website: https://jessebethea.com/
Tom Betti
Tom Betti serves on the board of Columbus Landmarks Foundation and is also chair of the Education Committee charged with leading the organization’s educational tours and extensive programming. He also founded and leads the Historic Preservation Committee of the Athletic Club of Columbus, celebrating, organizing, and documenting the club’s one-hundred-year history.
Read MoreTom Betti serves on the board of Columbus Landmarks Foundation and is also chair of the Education Committee charged with leading the organization’s educational tours and extensive programming. He also founded and leads the Historic Preservation Committee of the Athletic Club of Columbus, celebrating, organizing, and documenting the club’s one-hundred-year history.
Matt Betts
Matt Betts is an author and former radio personality. His work includes such science fiction novels as the critically recognized adventure Odd Men Out and its sequel Red Gear Nine, the urban fantasy Indelible Ink, the giant monster vs. giant robot book The Shadow Beneath the Waves, and the cryptid horror tale White Anvil: Sasquatch Onslaught. He is also an accomplished speculative poet, and lives in Columbus with his wife and children.
Laura Bickle
Laura Bickle grew up in rural Ohio, reading entirely too many comic books out loud to her favorite Wonder Woman doll. After graduating with an MA in Sociology – Criminology from Ohio State University and an MLIS in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she patrolled the stacks at the public library and worked with data systems in criminal justice. She now dreams up stories about the monsters under the stairs, also writing contemporary fantasy novels under the name Alayna Williams. Her work has been included in the ALA’s Amelia Bloomer Project 2013 reading list and the State Library of Ohio’s Choose to Read Ohio reading list for 2015-2016. Her newest project is the Wildlands contemporary fantasy series for Harper Voyager. The latest updates on her work are available at http://www.laurabickle.com/
Karin Biggs
Karin earned her bachelor’s degree in Hospitality and Tourism Management from Purdue University and served as an event planner for two Big 10 universities and various non-profits for over eight years before becoming a stay-at-home-mom. She enjoys chocolate-covered peanuts, uninterrupted sleep and singing with other people. Karin lives in Ohio with her husband, daughter, son, cat and dog.
George Bilgere
George Bilgere’s eighth collection of poetry is Central Air (2022). He has received the Midland Authors Prize, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the May Swenson Poetry Award, a Pushcart Prize, a Witter Bynner Fellowship through the Library of Congress, the Devins Award, the University of Akron Poetry Prize, a Fulbright Fellowship, the Ohioana Poetry Prize, the Autumn House Poetry Prize, the Cleveland Arts Prize, a Cleveland Creative Workforce grant, and four Individual Excellence grants from the Ohio Arts Council. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Kenyon Review, Best American Poetry, Ploughshares, Southern Review, Iowa Review, Georgia Review, Sewanee Review, New Ohio Review, Hopkins Quarterly, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. In 2021 he was the winner of the New Ohio Review’s Editor’s Choice Poetry Prize. Bilgere has given poetry readings at the Library of Congress, the 92nd Street Y in New York, the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC., the Chautauqua Institute, the Philip Larkin Library in Hull, England, and colleges, bookstores and libraries around the country. NPR listeners know him from his appearances on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion and more than fifty appearances on the National Public Radio broadcast, The Writer’s Almanac. Here in Cleveland, Bilgere, a recipient of John Carroll’s Distinguished Faculty Award, hosts a popular spoken word radio show on WJCU called Wordplay. Bilgere lives in Cleveland Heights with his marvelous wife and two very fine little boys. They spend their summers in Berlin, Germany, and can tell you a great deal about beer gardens.