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.
Marisa Silver
Marisa Silver is an author, screenwriter and film director. She is the winner of the 2017 Fiction Ohioana Book Award for Little Nothing.
Annette Dauphin Simon
Annette Dauphin Simon is the author and illustrator of several books for young readers, including Mocking Birdies and Robot Zombie Frankenstein! A former advertising creative director, she first found spine poetry—or spine poetry found her—as a bookseller in an independent bookshop. A proud parent of two lovely grown humans and one who lives yet in her heart, Annette’s at home in Southport, North Carolina. And any place with a book. Learn more at: https://annettesimon.net/
Curtis Sittenfeld
Curtis Sittenfeld is the bestselling author of six novels, including Prep, American Wife, Eligible and Rodham—and one story collection, You Think It, I’ll Say It. Her books have been selected by The New York Times, Time, Entertainment Weekly, and People for their “Ten Best Books of the Year” lists, optioned for television and film, and translated into thirty languages. Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and Esquire, and her non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Time, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, Slate, and on “This American Life.” A Cincinnati native, Curtis now lives in Minneapolis.
Erik Jon Slangerup
Erik Jon Slangerup grew up in a magical time, before cell phones or the internet. It was called the 80s. He spent most of it roaming outdoors unsupervised, which inspired him to write tales of adventure. Molly and the Machine is Book #1 of Far Flung Falls, a new middle-grade 80s adventure series. The sequel is Molly and the Mutants. Erik has also written several picture books, including the award-winning Dirt Boy. He is the father of six, which has been his biggest adventure yet. He lives in Columbus, Ohio. Discover more at http://www.erikjonslangerup.com/.
Terri-Lynne Smiles
Possessing “a native talent for imaginative storytelling” (Midwest Book Review) and being “skilled at crafting a nuanced page turner” (The Kirkus Review), Terri-Lynne Smiles creates novels filled with realistic characters, a quick pace, and a puzzle for the readers and characters to chew on. Her writing is diverse, ranging from The Rothston Series (2012-2016), a set of young adult/new adult urban fantasy novels, to Mirror Protocol (2016), a psychological murder mystery without a murder, to the sci-fi thriller Sarandipity (in development), set in a future in which sources of strife have been banned on Earth and humankind is spread across the stars.
Raised in a family of educators, Terri is passionate not only about writing but also teaching the craft. While she speaks on and teaches a wide variety of topics, her favorites include How to Develop a Plot; Crafting Believable Heroes and Villains; Pacing and Tension; and Race in Non-Racial Fiction. She has appeared at book clubs, participated in panels across the country, and has taught workshops at a variety of venues such as the Thurber House, the Upper Arlington Public Library, and the creative writing conference Imaginarium.
Terri-Lynne is committed to the charitable sector, serving as board chair for the Ohio Association of Nonprofit Organizations as well as volunteering with numerous community organizations.
For more information or to contact Terri-Lynne, see her website at http://www.terrilynnesmiles.com.
Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith is the award-winning author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Good Bones, The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, Lamp of the Body, and the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change. A 2011 recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Smith has also received several Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, two Academy of American Poets Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Sustainable Arts Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has been widely published, appearing in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Nation, The Best American Poetry, and more. You can follow her on social media @MaggieSmithPoet and learn more at https://maggiesmithpoet.com/
Joanne Huist Smith
Joanne (Jo) Huist Smith was an award-winning journalist for the Dayton Daily News where she chronicled the lives of people and issues shaping her Ohio community. She began writing short stories and journaling at age nine.
Jo was awarded first place from the Ohio Associated Press for Best Community Service for her 2009 package of stories on heroin’s destructive path through rural and suburban neighborhoods. The judges said her series “delivers information straight to the bloodstream.”
Jo’s career has been guided by advice given to her by former Dayton Daily News Managing Editor Steve Sidlo: “Love truth and you’ll be alright.” Those words are echoed in everything she writes, including The 13th Gift.
She is a life-long resident of the Dayton area and a graduate of Wright State University. She has three adult children and two absolutely adorable red-headed grandchildren.
Larry R. Smith
Larry Smith is a native of the industrial Ohio River Valley having grown up in Mingo Junction, Ohio, the second of four children. His father was a brakeman on the railroad of Weirton Steel where the author worked two summers to help pay for college. A graduate of Mingo High School, Muskingum College, and Kent State University, Smith taught at Bowling Green State University’s Firelands College from 1970 to 2012.
Smith has received fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities and was a Fulbright Lecturer in Italy. His photo history of Mingo Junction appeared in the Images of America Series. He was the first poet laureate of Huron, Ohio, and is a founder and director of The Firelands Writing Center and Bottom Dog Press. He and wife Ann live along the sandy shores of Lake Erie in Huron, Ohio, and are the parents of 3 adults and have 8 grandchildren.
M. Earl Smith
M. Earl Smith is the author of Little Karl. With work for children and adults, he seeks to stretch the boundaries of genre and style. A graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, Smith resides in Philadelphia, PA.
jw Smith
After 30 years as a professor in the field of Communication Studies, Dr. Smith reminisces about some of his experiences and how his race and differently abled intersectionality have influenced documented encounters. As a black and totally blind individual, he muses about how this distinction has both colored and shed light on what might have been innocuous or unremarkable encounters otherwise. This narrative charts his journey from leaving for graduate school to his present position as a tenured professor at a Midwest institution of higher learning. The memoir is riveting because of its vulnerability, candid honesty, and fresh transparency, as well as its conversational tone and quality. It is simultaneously an easy read but one that can also cause reflection and soul-searching without much warning. While the challenges of race and differently-abled issues are documented (and sometimes painfully so), Dr. Smith ultimately concludes that for the most part, these unique foci resulted in more positive outcomes than negative ones. It seems that only in America, is this story possible and the ultimate success of this memoir is clearly due to a strong faith in God, consistent and contagious family support, and hard work and perseverance.