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.
Donte Woods-Spikes
Donte Woods-Spikes began working with youth in the Near Eastside of Columbus Ohio in 2011.
His first youth project, A Talk With Our Sons consisted of youtube video interviews with young
Black male youth and life experiences within the city. As the project gained recognition,
Woods-Spikes was selected to give a TEDxColumbus Talk titled Young Black Men Not Left Out
Again.
Woods-Spikes also mentors young children. He created a documentary titled Donte &
Day’Mariah, which highlighted his journey mentoring a young Black girl and the dynamics and
benefits of cross gendered mentorship.
Woods-Spikes worked at a community center then transitioned into the columbus city schools
as a teachers aid for 3 years. 1 of those years taking place during the COVID-19 pandemic
which inspired him to write his book So. Long. Unfinished Good-byes with the Children of
COVID-19. His time is now devoted to professional development and contract work with schools
to create diverse inclusive environments for all children.
Jacqueline Woodson
Jacqueline Woodson (jacquelinewoodson.com) is the author of more than thirty books for young people and adults including Another Brooklyn, Red At The Bone, and The Day You Begin. She received a 2023 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a 2023 E. B. White Award, a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the 2018 Children’s Literature Legacy Award, and was the 2018–2019 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Her New York Times bestselling memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming, won the National Book Award, the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, and the NAACP Image Award. Her books for young readers include Coretta Scott King Award and NAACP Image Award winner Before the Ever After, New York Times bestsellers The Day You Begin, and Harbor Me, Newbery Honor winners Feathers, Show Way, After Tupac and D Foster, and Each Kindness. In 2018, she founded BALDWIN FOR THE ARTS (https://baldwinforthearts.org), a residency serving writers, composers, interdisciplinary, and visual artists of the Global Majority. Her most recent novel, Remember Us, is set in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn.
Jennifer Wortman
Jennifer Wortman is the author of the story collection This. This. This. Is. Love. Love. Love (Split Lip Press, 2019). Her fiction, essays, and poetry appear in TriQuarterly, Copper Nickel, Glimmer Train, Electric Literature, Brevity, Hobart, North American Review, Juked, and elsewhere. A native of Gambier, Ohio, she currently lives with her family in Colorado, where she serves as associate fiction editor for Colorado Review and teaches at Lighthouse Writers Workshop.
Donna Wyland
Donna Wyland is an award-winning author, editor, and coach whose personal essays and poetry have appeared in numerous collections and magazines. She is the author of picture books, ‘Twas the Night Before Jesus, Your Home in Heaven and If I Could Ask Jesus; gift book, Surrender; and a novel, Autumn’s Harmony. Through her written work, Donna seeks to entertain and encourage readers to draw near to God to experience freedom, forgiveness, peace, love, and the hope of eternal life in heaven.
Robin Yocum
- A Perfect Shot (2018 – Seventh Street Books)
- A Welcome Murder (2017 - Seventh Street Books)
- A Brilliant Death (2016 - Seventh Street Books);
- The Essay (2012 - Arcade Publishing); and
- Favorite Sons (2011 - Arcade Publishing)
Robin Yocum is known for his fiction set in the Ohio River Valley.
His most recent novel, The Sacrifice of Lester Yates, was released in April of 2021 by Arcade CrimeWise, an imprint of Arcade Publishing.
He is the author of five additional works of fiction:
- A Perfect Shot (2018 – Seventh Street Books)
- A Welcome Murder (2017 – Seventh Street Books)
- A Brilliant Death (2016 – Seventh Street Books);
- The Essay (2012 – Arcade Publishing); and
- Favorite Sons (2011 – Arcade Publishing)
Favorite Sons was named the 2011 Book of the Year for Mystery/Suspense by USA Book News. A Brilliant Death was a Barnes & Noble No. 1 bestseller and a finalist for both the 2017 Edgar Award and the Silver Falchion Award for best adult mystery.
He also has written two works of non-fiction: Dead Before Deadline . . . and Other Tales from the Police Beat (2004 – University of Akron Press); and Insured for Murder (1992 – Prometheus Books), which he co-authored with Cathy Candisky.
Yocum joined the Columbus Dispatch in 1980. He worked at the paper for 11 years, including six years as the senior reporter on the investigative desk. He won more than 30 local, state and national journalism awards in categories ranging from investigative reporting to feature writing. Before joining the investigative team, he covered the police beat for four years, which was the basis for his book, Dead Before Deadline.
Prior to joining the Dispatch, Yocum was the associate sports editor of the Martins Ferry, Ohio, Times Leader, and a reporter for the Lancaster, Ohio, Eagle-Gazette.
He is the principle at Yocum Communications, a public relations and marketing consulting firm in Galena, Ohio, which he founded in 2001.
Yocum grew up in the Ohio River village of Brilliant, Ohio.
He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University.
R.G. Yoho
R.G. Yoho, Washington County, is the author of Return to Matewan, which is his first historical novel, a story taking place during the brutal coal mine wars in West Virginia and Colorado.
Primarily a Western author, Yoho has published, Long Ride to Yesterday, in addition to his four books in the Kellen Malone series, Death Comes to Redhawk, Death Rides the Rail, Nightfall Over Nicodemus, and The Evil Day. The author’s passion for Westerns began with the reading of Flint, a novel by famed Western author, Louis L’Amour.
Yoho has also published three non-fiction works, America’s History Is His Story, a book written as a request from a friend, Major Impact, the biography of former West Virginia quarterback, Major Harris, and Heroes In Our Midst, a profile of World War II veterans which received an award for historical preservation.
A graduate of Hyles-Anderson College, Yoho has been employed in chemical manufacturing for over thirty years. He lives in Southeastern Ohio with his wife of over thirty years.
John Young
When he was eight years old, John Young told his mother he wanted to be a scientist or a clown. So he spent most of his career in advertising, of course. Along the way, this native Hoosier graduated from Indiana University and scooped up an MFA from Emerson College in Boston. He also taught English at the high school and college levels.
He lives with his wife and two kids in Cincinnati. WHEN THE COIN IS IN THE AIR is his first novel.
Felicia Zamora
Felicia Zamora is a poet, educator, and editor currently living in OH. She is the author of six books of poetry including: I Always Carry My Bones, winner of the 2020 Iowa Poetry Prize released from the University of Iowa Press in April 2021, Quotient forthcoming from Tinderbox Editions in 2022, Body of Render, winner of the 2018 Benjamin Saltman Award from Red Hen Press (2020), Instrument of Gaps (Slope Editions, 2018), & in Open, Marvel (Parlor Press, 2018), and Of Form & Gather, winner of the 2016 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize (University of Notre Dame Press). She’s received fellowships and residencies from CantoMundo, Ragdale Foundation, PLAYA, Moth Magazine, and Noepe Center at Martha’s Vineyard, authored two chapbooks, won the 2020 C.P. Cavafy Prize, the 2019 Wabash Prize for Poetry and the 2015 Tomaž Šalamun Prize, and was the 2017 Poet Laureate of Fort Collins, CO. Her poems and essays are found or forthcoming in AGNI, Alaska Quarterly Review, Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, American Poetry Review, Boston Review online, Georgia Review, Guernica, Literary Hub, Missouri Review Poem-of-the-Week, Orion, Poetry Magazine, Poetry Daily, Poetry International, Prairie Schooner, The Nation, and others. She is an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Cincinnati and is the associate poetry editor for the Colorado Review.
Visit her website at: https://www.feliciazamora.com/
Maria Zampini
Maria Zampini runs the horticultural marketing firm, UpShoot, LLC, in Lake County, Ohio. She researches plant trends and develops and introduces new plants to the horticultural market. Zampini lives in Springfield, Ohio.
Scott A. Zanon
Scott Zanon is the author of two gardening books, Desirable Trees for the Midwest and his most recent, Landscaping with Trees in the Midwest. An accomplished and long-time gardener, he holds a Bachelor of Science degree in both Agronomy (turfgrass science) and Horticulture (landscape horticulture) from The Ohio State University.
Read MoreScott Zanon is the author of two gardening books, Desirable Trees for the Midwest and his most recent, Landscaping with Trees in the Midwest. An accomplished and long-time gardener, he holds a Bachelor of Science degree in both Agronomy (turfgrass science) and Horticulture (landscape horticulture) from The Ohio State University.