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.
- You are searching within category(ies): 2024
Robinson Lizano Briceño
Robinson Lizano Briceño is a journalist, professor, and writer. He immigrated to the United States from Venezuela in 2018. He is the author of the books Manual de Géneros Periodísticos, La Maldad: Sicarios, Pranes y Otros Monstruos: Crónicas de Primicia, and Los Crímenes que Apagaron la Música, whose English version, Crimes That Turn Off the Music, was published in November 2023. He is an educator at La Jornada in Hilliard, through the National Youth Advocate Program. He has lived with his family in Marysville, Ohio, since 2021.
Amit Majmudar
AMIT MAJMUDAR is a poet, novelist, essayist, translator, and the former first Poet Laureate of Ohio. He works as a diagnostic and nuclear radiologist and lives in Westerville, Ohio, with his wife and three children. He is the author of seventeen books so far in a variety of categories, with different bodies of work published in the United States and in India.
POETRY: His poetry collections include 0’, 0’ (Northwestern, 2009), shortlisted for the Norma Faber First Book Award; and Heaven and Earth (2011, Storyline Press), which won the Donald Justice Prize. These volumes were followed by Dothead (Knopf, 2016) and What He Did in Solitary (Knopf, 2020). His poems have won the Pushcart Prize and have appeared in the Norton Introduction to Literature, The New Yorker, and numerous Best American Poetry anthologies as well as journals and magazines across the United States, UK, India, and Australia. Majmudar also edited, at Knopf’s invitation, a political poetry anthology entitled Resistance, Rebellion, Life: 50 Poems Now. Majmudar’s forthcoming volume, a hybrid of prose, drama, and poetry, is Three Metamorphoses (Orison Books, 2024).
NONFICTION: Majmudar’s essays have appeared in Marginalia at the Los Angeles Review of Books, where he is a contributing editor, as well as The Best American Essays 2018, The New York Times, and the Times of India, among several other publications. His collection of essays, focusing on Indian religious philosophy, history, and mythology, is Black Avatar and Other Essays (Acre Books, 2023). Twin A: A Memoir (Slant Books, 2023) is a memoir, in prose and verse, about his son’s struggle with congenital heart disease.
FICTION: Majmudar’s work as a novelist includes two works of historical fiction centered around the 1947 Partition of India, Partitions (Holt/Metropolitan, 2011) and The Map and the Scissors (HarperCollins India, 2022). His first children’s book also focuses on Indian history and is entitled Heroes the Colour of Dust (Puffin India, 2022). Majmudar has also penned a tragicomic, magical realist fable of Indian soldiers during World War I, Soar (Penguin India, 2020). The Abundance (Holt/Metropolitan, 2013), by contrast, is a work of contemporary realism exploring Indian-American life. Majmudar’s long-form fiction has garnered rave reviews from NPR’s All Things Considered, The Wall Street Journal, Good Housekeeping, and The Economist, as well as starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist; his short fiction won a 2017 O. Henry Prize.
MYTHOLOGY: Majmudar’s work in Hindu mythology includes a polyphonic Ramayana retelling, Sitayana (Penguin India, 2019), and The Book of Vows (Penguin India, 2023), the first volume in a trilogy that retells the ancient epic poem, Mahabharata. The forthcoming volumes are entitled The Book of Discoveries and The Book of Killings. He has also composed a forthcoming original mythological story cycle called The Later Adventures of Hanuman (Penguin India, 2024).
TRANSLATION: His work as a translator includes Godsong: A Verse Translation of the Bhagavad-Gita, with Commentary (Knopf, 2018), available both in the United States and India.
Olivia Matthews
Olivia Matthews is the mystery pseudonym of national best-selling author Patricia Sargeant. Patricia writes romance as Patricia Sargeant and Regina Hart. As Olivia Matthews, she’s written the Sister Lou Mysteries, Peach Coast Library Mysteries, and the Spice Isle Bakery Mysteries. Patricia’s work has been reviewed in national publications such as Publishers Weekly, USA Today, Kirkus Reviews, Suspense Magazine, Mystery Scene Magazine, Library Journal, and RT Book Reviews. Patricia was drawn to write romance because she believes love is the strongest motivation. Her mysteries put ordinary people in extraordinary situations to have them find the Hero Inside. For more information about Patricia and her work, visit PatriciaSargeant.com.
Katie Mazeika
Katie Mazeika is an author and illustrator who can’t imagine a better job than making books. Katie specializes in telling stories based on real people and events and likes to highlight disabled voices in her work. Katie’s the author/illustrator of Annette Feels Free and Beulah Has a Hunch! Katie has illustrated several other books including three in the Chicken Soup for the Soul: Babies series. When she’s not drawing Katie likes to spend her time gardening or reading other people’s books. Katie currently lives in Cleveland, Ohio. You can visit her online at http://www.katiemazeika.com.
Mindy McGinnis
Mindy McGinnis is an Edgar Award-winning novelist who writes across multiple genres, including post-apocalyptic, historical, thriller, contemporary, mystery, and fantasy. While her settings may change, you can always count on Mindy’s books to deliver grit, truth, and an unflinching look at humanity and the world around us. Learn more at: https://www.mindymcginnis.com/.
Claire McMillan
Claire McMillan is a novelist, most recently of Alchemy of a Blackbird, published by Atria/Simon & Schuster in July of 2023. She is also the author of The Necklace, which was published by Touchstone/Simon & Schuster in 2017, as well as Gilded Age, published by Simon& Schuster in 2012. A native of Pasadena, California, she practiced law in San Francisco for six years before moving to Cleveland in 2003. As well as a JD, she holds an MFA in creative writing from Bennington College. She was named the Cuyahoga County Public Library Writer in Residence for the 2017-2018 year. During that time, she taught four classes on craft that were open to the public at the Skirball Writing Center. Additionally, she held monthly office hours for aspiring writers that were open to the public. She was also a Writer in Residence onsite at the Mount, Edith Wharton’s home in Lenox, Massachusetts. Her enthusiasm for her time there led to her being asked to serve as a Trustee on the Board of the Mount, where she still serves today. McMillan currently lives on her husband’s family farm outside of Cleveland, Ohio with their two children.
Wendy McVicker
Wendy McVicker, 2020-2022 poet laureate of Athens, Ohio, is a longtime Ohio Arts Council teaching artist. Her most recent chapbook, Zero, a Door, was also published by The OrchardStreet Press (2021). She loves collaborating with other artists, and performs with instrumentalist Emily Prince under the name “another language altogether” whenever she gets the chance. Stronger When We Touch is her first full-length collaboration with another poet.
David Meyers
A graduate of Miami University and The Ohio State University, David Meyers can’t seem to keep from writing stuff. His lifelong interest in history has led him to turn out a number of non-fiction books on a variety of topics, especially those neglected by others. He frequently collaborates with his daughter, Elise. He has also authored several novels and a handful of works for the stage, including two full length musicals. In 2019, he was inducted into the Ohio Senior Citizens Hall of Fame for his work. Learn more at: https://www.explodingstove.com/
Elise Meyers Walker
Patricia Miller
Patricia Miller grew up in a small town in Ohio and has worked as a mental health clinical counselor for the past 30+ years. She fell in love with mysteries with the help of Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and science fiction via Star Trek. Patricia is the award-winning author of 6 published books but she is especially proud of her middle grade mystery collections which form out a collaboration between herself and young art students from Ohio. Her mental health expertise and training have been the driving force behind her current project which is creating a children’s mindfulness picture book series aimed at being an aid to therapists, teachers and/or parents, to help kids learn specific effective coping skills which can not only help with emotion management but also lay the foundation for healthy mental health before problems surface. Patricia also has a science fiction trilogy for young adults, which shows that even a young scientific phenom has issues fitting in to this world we call Earth. Patricia is best known for her relatable characters, clever twists & turns, and feel-good endings.