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.
Gregg Sapp
Gregg Sapp is a Pinnacle Award winning the author of the Holidazed series of cultural satires, each of which is centered around a different holiday. To date, there are seven books in the series, beginning with The Christmas Donut Revolution to the most recent, Mother Fracking Earth Day. Previous books include his dollar store epic, Dollarapalooza (Switchgrass Books, 2011), and Fresh News Straight from Heaven which is based on the folklore of Johnny Appleseed (Evolved 2018). He also writes essays, humor, poetry and short fiction that has appeared in literary journals far and wide. A native Ohioan, Gregg now writes full time and lives in Tumwater, WA. For more, see sappgregg.net
Patricia Sargeant
Patricia Sargeant is a national best-selling author. She writes romance as Patricia Sargeant and Regina Hart, and mysteries as Olivia Matthews. Her work has been reviewed in national publications such as Publishers Weekly, USA Today, Kirkus Reviews, Suspense Magazine, Mystery Scene Magazine, Library Journal and BookRiot. Patricia was drawn to write romance because she believes love is the greatest 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
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/
J.H. Schiller
J. H. Schiller writes speculative fiction with a flair for the weird and a healthy dose of the absurd. She earned a graduate degree in international affairs and worked for the federal government in Washington, DC. She has since escaped to Ohio, where she is the founder and President of Dublin Creative Writers, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides education and community for authors in Ohio and beyond. Her short fiction has been featured in several anthologies and digital publications. The first two volumes in her Comedy of Horrors series, The Witch of Tophet County and Playing with Fire, are available now from Podium Publishing. She is a member of the SFWA.
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.