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.
Rikki Santer
Rikki Santer’s poetry has appeared in numerous publications both nationally and abroad including Ms. Magazine, Poetry East, The Journal of American Poetry, Hotel Amerika, Crab Orchard Review, Grimm, Slipstream and The Main Street Rag. Her work has received many honors including five Pushcart and three Ohioana book award nominations as well as a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her eighth collection, Drop Jaw, inspired by the art of ventriloquism, was published by NightBallet Press in the spring of 2020.
Gregg Sapp
Gregg Sapp, a native Ohioan, is a Pinnacle Award winning author of the “Holidazed” series of satires, each of which is centered around a different holiday. To date, there are four books in the series: “Halloween from the Other Side,” “The Christmas Donut Revolution,” “Upside Down Independence Day,” and the latest, “Murder by Valentine Candy.” Previous books include “Dollarapalooza” (Switchgrass Books, 2011) and “Fresh News Straight from Heaven,” which is based on the folklore of Johnny Appleseed (Evolved 2018). He has published humor, poetry, and short stories in Defenestration, Waypoints, Semaphore, Kestrel, Zodiac Review, Top Shelf, Marathon Review, Midwestern Gothic, and others. Gregg writes full time and lives in Tumwater, WA.
Ashish K. Saxena
Ashish K. Saxena is a published academic researcher, and sci-fi writer whose work in each of these areas revolves around the efficient and ethical use of artificial intelligence. He strives to explore the crossroads of technology and the humanities, underscoring how social structures and interactions evolve alongside scientific innovation.
In his fictional science book series, “Ava’s New World: A Dystopian Sci-Fi Odyssey,” Ashish opens the door to a world where technology and society navigate uncharted territories. Readers are drawn into futuristic scenarios where AI and humanity coexist, collide, and redefine the boundaries of existence.
Ava’s New World is only the first phase of a saga that will extend from the depths of artificial minds to the farthest reaches of the universe.
Robert Sberna
Robert Sberna is a journalist and author of Badge 387: The Story of Jim Simone, America’s Most Decorated Cop. A graduate of Ohio University’s School of Journalism, he began his career covering police beats for daily newspapers in the Midwest. In recent years, he has contributed to The Washington Examiner, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Neoconomist, Crain’s, and Ohio Magazine. His first book, House of Horrors: The Shocking True Story of Anthony Sowell, was named the 2012 True Crime “Book of the Year” by Foreword Reviews. He has appeared on numerous TV shows, including the History Channel’s America’s Book of Secrets. Visit him at http://www.robertsberna.com.
John Scalzi
John Scalzi has written nearly all of his science fiction from a home office in Bradford, Ohio, where he can look out the window and see Amish buggies clopping by. His first published novel, 2005’s “Old Man’s War,” was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Novel and helped him win the John W. Campbell/Astounding Award for Best New Writer. Scalzi would go on to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2013 for his New York Times bestselling novel Redshirts. His most recent novel, The Kaiju Preservation Society, is a 2023 Alex Award recipient and currently optioned for television. Scalzi also writes for the Emmy Award-winning television series Love Death + Robots, where Ohio features prominently in his episode “When the Yogurt Took Over.” In 2016, Scalzi’s work earned him the Governor’s Award for Arts in Ohio. https://whatever.scalzi.com/
Randall L. Schieber
Randall Lee Schieber is a photographer based in Columbus, Ohio. He specializes in editorial, architectural, location, and travel photography and has published six books and numerous calendars. His work has appeared in a variety of local and national publications.
Brandy Schillace
I grew up in an underground house, next to a graveyard, in abandoned coal lands… with a pet raccoon. Oddly, this tends not to surprise people as much as I think it will. My rural community skirted the poverty line, a place of failed industry and orange rivers, poor health, and poorer access to healthcare. As a result, I spent my childhood reading a lot about disease and going to a lot of funerals. I ended up with a Ph.D. and a career in science history, which is probably a likely thing to happen when you spend your early years in a cemetery.
I’ve worked in an English Department, a History Department, and for a Medical Anthropology journal. I spent five years as a research associate in a medical museum among amputation saws, surgery kits, and smallpox vaccines—and now, in addition to being an author, I’m Editor-in-Chief for BMJ’s Medical Humanities Journal. I tend to fall outside the borders and binaries on every side.
I always liked the line by Walt Whitman: I contain multitudes. Each of us are completely unique sets of data and DNA, blood and bones, bits and pieces of ancient stardust (and some microplastics). We don’t just have fingerprints. We are fingerprints — completely unique phenomenon in the universe, never before and never to be again. I am a truck, a train, a bulldog in a wind-tunnel; I’m also autistic. I live in the middle spaces where the contradictions are, containing bits of astral matter, aspects of both genders and possibly some dragons and vampires. I do history the way most people climb mountains–I get my hands dirty–I end up in catacombs, archives, basements. As you can imagine, this sort of thing doesn’t fit in a box very well. Then again, life is more interesting at the intersections.
***Addendum on that pet raccoon… She eventually figured out how to open the fridge. It was a whole thing.
Check out her website: https://brandyschillace.com/
Eugene Schmiel
Eugene D. Schmiel is a retired U.S. Department of State Foreign Service officer. He was an assistant professor of history at St. Francis University (PA) and has taught at Marymount, Shenandoah, and Penn State universities. He holds the Ph.D. degree from The Ohio State University and coauthored, with his wife Kathryn, a book on life in the Foreign Service.
Read MoreEugene D. Schmiel is a retired U.S. Department of State Foreign Service officer. He was an assistant professor of history at St. Francis University (PA) and has taught at Marymount, Shenandoah, and Penn State universities. He holds the Ph.D. degree from The Ohio State University and coauthored, with his wife Kathryn, a book on life in the Foreign Service.
Ken Schneck
Ken Schneck is an author, professor, radio host, and rabble rouser. His travelogue, “Seriously, What Am I Doing Here?: The Adventures of a Wondering and Wandering Gay Jew” was published in 2017, “LGBTQ Cleveland” was released in 2018, and “LGBTQ Columbus” hits the shelves in June of 2019. He is a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post, Cleveland Magazine and FreshWater Cleveland, and currently serves as the Editor for Prizm Magazine, Ohio’s only LGBTQ publication. For 10 years, he was the producer/host of “This Show is So Gay,” the award-winning, long-running radio show/podcast. In his spare time, he is a Professor of Education at Baldwin Wallace University.
Amy Schneider
Amy Schneider is an American software engineer and recent Jeopardy! champion. Following an impressive forty-game winning streak, she became the most successful woman ever to compete on Jeopardy!. She is second all-time in the show’s history, trailing only Ken Jennings. Amy is also the first openly transgender contestant to qualify for the Tournament of Champions. She has been covered in People, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, USA TODAY, and more, and she has appeared on Good Morning America.