Category: Literature

Born: October 26, 1946Died: May 22, 2020 Ohio connection: Birth Mount Vernon Robb Reavill Forman was born in 1946 in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, the daughter of Dr. Oliver Duane (a neurosurgeon) and Helen (neé Ransom) Forman. In 1950, she moved with her family to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but she did not lose her connection to Ohio. Robb Forman …

Born: 1958 Ohio connection: Birth Columbus Tracey E. Dils was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the daughter of Lawrence Albert (a physician) and Grace (a homemaker; maiden name, Shaffer) Dils. She was raised in Granville and earned her B.A. at College of Wooster in 1980.  As a teenager she won a national short story contest.  Later, a …

Born: 1930 Ohio connection: Resident Athens Wayne Dodd, son of Homer D. and Maggie M. (Potts) Dodd, was born in 1930 in Clarita, Oklahoma. Dodd served in the United States Navy on submarines from 1948 to 1952 and was part of an elite group logging over a thousand dives. According to Dodd, his submarine was the …

Born: 1962 Ohio connection: Former Resident Athens Elizabeth Caroline Dodd was born in March 20, 1962 in Boulder, Colorado. She was raised in southeast Ohio having moved to Athens in 1968 when her father, Wayne Dodd accepted a teaching position at Ohio University. Dodd graduated summa cum laude from Ohio University in 1983, with a double major …

Born: 1954 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Lynda was born to Oliver, an engineer, and Shirley (Peterson), a teacher, in 1954, in Cleveland, Ohio.  She received her Bachelor’s degree (1979) and her Master’s degree (1982) from the University of Washington, Seattle.  She married business executive Wesley Lemmon in 1989 they have one son.  Durrant has penned historical young …

Born: 1940 Ohio connection: Resident Kent Zee Edgell was born Zelma Inez Tucker in Belize City, British Honduras (now Belize) on October 21, 1940.  She is the oldest child of Clive Tucker, an import-export worker and Veronica Walker Tucker a homemaker and poet.  Edgell and her siblings were raised in during the country’s difficult economic times …

Born: 1932 Ohio connection: Birth East Liverpool The daughter of William Jack, Jr., and Helen Margaret (Willis) Curry, Jane Louise Curry was born and raised in East Liverpool, Ohio (the location of her novel for young people, The Lotus Cup). She grew up in a “family compound”, with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins all living close …

Born: 1949 Ohio connection: Birth Wapakoneta Novelist, essayist, editor, and educator Jennifer Crusie is an award-winning author of romance novels, short stories, and literary criticism. The author of more than 20 books, her work has been published in more than 15 countries and has earned a place on many bestseller lists including the New York …

Born: 1945 Ohio connection: Birth Akron A longtime resident of Ohio, poet Elton Glaser was born and raised in Louisiana.  He earned an MFA from the University of California, Irvine. Glaser’s collections of poetry include Relics (1984); Tropical Depressions(1988), which won the Iowa Poetry Prize; Color Photographs of the Ruins (1992); Winter Amnesties (2000); and Pelican Tracks(2003). His sixth collection, Here and Hereafter (2005), received …