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.
Hugh Sheehy
Hugh Sheehy is a lecturer at Yeshiva College and has previously taught at Kennesaw State University and Georgia State University. Sheehy received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Alabama. His stories have appeared in publications including Glimmer Train, Kenyon Review, and Best American Mystery Stories. (Photo by Liz Ligon)
Ric S. Sheffield
Ric S. Sheffield is Professor Emeritus of Legal Studies and Sociology at Kenyon College and the Director of the John Adams Summer Scholars Program in Socio-legal Studies.
Before coming to Kenyon, he served for ten years as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Ohio. He began his legal career as a civil rights lawyer handling primarily sex and race discrimination cases. He subsequently held the position of chief attorney as head of the state’s consumer protection division.
In addition to research that has focused upon the relationship between law and issues of gender, race, and ethnicity, he has spent several years examining issues involving the African American experience in rural Ohio. He is among a select group of scholars chosen to participate in the Ohio Humanities Council’s speakers’ bureau, lecturing widely on issues of race and law as well as rural diversity.
He has published articles, reviews, and book chapters on topics including legal history, the legal profession, and African American social and legal history. He is the author of the book “We Got By: A Black Family’s Journey in the Heartland.” His current project includes completion of a manuscript on voting rights cases from Ohio in the late 1860s and early 1870s.
A graduate of Case Western Reserve University where he attended college, graduate school in sociology and law school, he has served upon various statewide policy-making and regulatory boards. During his career at Kenyon, he spent several years on the College’s senior staff as associate provost before his return fulltime to the faculty. Learn more: https://www.ricsheffield.com/
Jan Sherbin
Jan Sherbin is a Cincinnati writer who wanted to capture little hippo Fiona’s earliest days in a story for people of all ages, from small children to grown-ups. She wanted people who followed Fiona’s journey to have a long-lasting remembrance of that special experience.
Hip, Hippo, Hooray for Fiona! is the result. The book shows the extraordinary animal-human bond between Fiona and the keepers who saved her life, the devotion of Zoo staff, and the Zoo’s groundbreaking science and animal care. The book is a tribute to a tiny hippo with a big personality, who brought happiness into our troubled world.
A portion of proceeds from sales of Hip, Hippo, Hooray for Fiona! goes to the Cincinnati Zoo to help it continue its world-class work.
Jeff Shesol
A founding partner of West Wing Writers, Shesol is the author of Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. The Supreme Court, which was selected as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 2010 and a Favorite Book of the Year by The New Yorker.…
Read MoreA founding partner of West Wing Writers, Shesol is the author of Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. The Supreme Court, which was selected as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 2010 and a Favorite Book of the Year by The New Yorker. The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin described Supreme Power as “stunning,” the kind of book that comes “once in a generation,” and The New York Times Book Review called it “riveting … revealing … an impressive and engaging book … deeply researched and beautifully written.”
Shesol’s previous book, Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy and the Feud That Defined a Decade, was also a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., called Mutual Contempt “the most gripping political book of recent years.” In the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani described the book as “riveting … Writing in sharp, fluent prose, Mr. Shesol does an authoritative job of giving us a vivid, almost novelistic sense of both of his protagonists, while at the same time situating their political stands within a historical context.”
In 1997, President Bill Clinton read Mutual Contempt and invited Shesol to become one of his speechwriters. During his three years at the White House, Shesol became the deputy chief speechwriter and a member of the senior staff. He played a leading role in drafting two State of the Union Addresses, the President’s 2000 Democratic National Convention speech, and the Farewell Address, among hundreds of other speeches. He covered a range of issues from economic policy to international development, technological innovation, and the arts. He also helped lead the President’s team of humor writers — a team that produced the acclaimed short film The Final Days.
A Rhodes Scholar, Jeff received his masters in history from Oxford University in 1993 and graduated from Brown University with highest honors in 1991. His comic strip Thatch was nationally syndicated from 1994–1998, when it appeared daily in more than 150 newspapers. He has taught presidential history at Princeton University, where he was the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow in American Studies, and at the University of California Washington Center. Shesol publishes widely under his own byline and provides frequent commentary on TV and radio. He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, Rebecca — a civil rights attorney — and their two children.
Check out his website at: http://shesol.com/
William J. Shkurti
William J. Shkurti is retired from The Ohio State University. His most recent positions have been Senior Vice President for Business and Finance from 2000 to 2010 and Vice President for Finance from 1990 to 2000. He was also an undergraduate at OSU from 1964 to 1968. Currently, Bill is an adjunct professor at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs.
Jennifer Ann Shore
Jennifer Ann Shore is an award-winning, bestselling author based in Seattle, Washington. She writes romance stories that go a little deeper than the standard tropes. Her lineup of more than a dozen books includes standalones, a dystopian series, and a vampire series—with titles such as “Perfect Little Flaws,” “Young at Midnight,” and “Metallic Red.” Prior to publishing, she led an impressive career in New York, first as a journalist and then as a marketing executive, gaining recognition for her work from companies such as Hearst and SIIA. Be sure to sign up for her newsletter on her website (https://www.jenniferannshore.com) and follow her on Twitter (@JenniferAShore), Instagram (@shorely), and TikTok (@jenniferannshore).
Sharon Short
Sharon Short is the author more than eleven published books. Her novel My One Square Inch of Alaska, released in 2013, chronicles the adventures of a pair of siblings escaping the strictures of the 1950s industrial Ohio town. The opening chapters of this novel earned Sharon a 2012 Ohio Arts Council individual artist’s grant and a 2011 Montgomery County Arts & Cultural District Literary Artist Fellowship.…
Read MoreSharon Short is the author more than eleven published books. Her novel My One Square Inch of Alaska, released in 2013, chronicles the adventures of a pair of siblings escaping the strictures of the 1950s industrial Ohio town. The opening chapters of this novel earned Sharon a 2012 Ohio Arts Council individual artist’s grant and a 2011 Montgomery County Arts & Cultural District Literary Artist Fellowship. Short is the Literary Life columnist for the Dayton Daily News, directs the renowned Antioch Writers’ Workshop in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and is an adjunct instructor of creative writing and composition at Antioch University Midwest. Additionally, Short’s book Sanity Check: A Collection of Columns, released in June 2012, includes 100 reader-favorites of her weekly humor and lifestyle column that ran in the Dayton Daily News from 2002-2012. She has published mystery series as well as short stories and essays. Short holds a B.A. in English from Wright State University and an M.A. in English from Bowling Green State University. She lives in Centerville, Ohio. Visit Sharon’s blog at http://sharonshort.blogspot.com/.
Heather Shumaker
Heather Shumaker is the author of books for children and adults.
Her newest book, The Griffins of Castle Cary, is charming and slightly spooky adventure for middle grade readers, ages 8-12 (Simon & Schuster, 2019). The story features three plucky siblings, a ginormous, drooly Newfoundland dog, and a bit of a ghost problem.
Heather is a nationally known speaker who frequently keynotes and teaches workshops. She speaks at early childhood conferences around the U.S. and Canada, as well as schools, libraries and writing conferences. She loves to share her joy of books and children with audiences everywhere.
She’s the author of three nonfiction books, including Saving Arcadia, a narrative nonfiction book about Great Lakes land conservation. Saving Arcadia (Wayne State, 2017) has won state and national awards including: Michigan Notable Book Award, Eric Hoffer Award finalist, and Next Generation Indie Book – Environment Winner. Her nonfiction parenting/ education books (It’s OK Not to Share, Tarcher Penguin, 2012 and It’s OK to Go Up the Slide Tarcher Penguin RandomHouse, 2016) have been translated into Arabic, Chinese, French, Korean, Romanian, and Russian.
Heather was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio. She holds a BA in sociology/ anthropology from Swarthmore College and an MS in land resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Today Heather lives in Traverse City, Michigan with her husband and two children.
Cristina Sicard
Cristina Sicard, children’s author who brought you the lovable llama Harmony, carries on wanting to help children and adults alike through compelling storytelling. Resembling Cristina’s own battles with mental health, Sábana and Lula are characters she hopes to connect with individuals and elevate diversity and inclusion. To calm her worries, Cristina loves to take walks in the sunshine, laugh at herself and the messages her Dominican family sends in WhatsApp, pose with her gorgeous cat Cloudy, dance in front of mirrors, and work on projects with her out of this world Mami.
Carter Sickels
Carter Sickels is the author of The Prettiest Star (Hub City Press, 2020), winner of the Southern Book Prize, the Ohioana Book Award in Fiction, and the Weatherford Award, and the novel The Evening Hour (Bloomsbury, 2012). His debut novel The Evening Hour (Bloomsbury), a 2013 Oregon Book Award finalist and a Lambda Literary Award finalist, was adapted into a feature film that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Oxford American, Poets & Writers, Guernica, and Catapult. He lives in Cincinnati.