Category: Short Stories

Thomas Boyd

Born: July 3, 1898Died: January 1935 Ohio connection: Birth Defiance Writer, novelist, and journalist Thomas Alexander Boyd was born in Defiance, Ohio, the only child of Alice (nee Dunbar) Boyd and James Alexander Boyd. Due to his father’s death three months before he was born and his mother’s move to Chicago, Illinois, to pursue a nursing …

Read More Thomas Boyd

Kate Wilhelm

Born: June 8, 1928Died: March 8, 2018 Ohio connection: Birth Toledo Kate Wilhelm was born Katie Gertrude Meredith, daughter of Jesse and Ann Meredith, in Toledo, Ohio, in 1928. After graduating from high school in Louisville, Kentucky, she worked as a model, telephone operator, sales clerk, switchboard operator, and underwriter for an insurance company. She …

Read More Kate Wilhelm

Sherwood Anderson

Born: September 13, 1876Died: March 8, 1941 Ohio connection: Birth Camden Sherwood Anderson was, essentially, a self-educated short-story writer and novelist. With his almost staccato style of writing and by his injecting his own personal experiences and people he knew into his own novels, Anderson helped set a new standard for Midwestern literature.  Born in Camden, …

Read More Sherwood Anderson

Kay Boyle

Born: February 19, 1902Died: December 27, 1992 Ohio connection: Resident Cincinnati Kay Boyle was a writer, educator, and political activist. She was twice awarded Guggenheim fellowships and won the O. Henry Award for best short story of the year (“The White Horses of Vienna”) in 1935 and again (“Defeat”) in 1941.  Boyle held a number …

Read More Kay Boyle

Lee K. Abbott

Born: October 17, 1947Died: April 29, 2019 Ohio connection: Resident Columbus Lee Kittredge Abbott, writer and educator, was a professor of English for more than three decades, teaching at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio for twelve years before transferring to Ohio State University (OSU) in 1989 where he taught until his retirement in 2012. …

Read More Lee K. Abbott

William Allen

Born: 1940 Ohio connection: Resident Columbus Born in Dallas, Texas, William Allen attended North Texas State University with famous classmates such as journalist Bill Moyers. After he received a BA in English from California State University at Long Beach in 1968, Allen was invited to be part of the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. In …

Read More William Allen