Born: March 4, 1869 Died: May 24, 1934 Ohio connection: Birth Urbana Brand Whitlock, journalist, politician, writer, and diplomat, was born in 1869 in Urbana, Ohio, to the Reverend Elias and Molly Lavinia (Brand) Whitlock. He was first educated at home and later at a public high school in Toledo, Ohio, where the family moved …
Read More Brand WhitlockBorn: 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 BoyleBorn: January 30, 1931Died: July 7, 2011 Ohio connection: Resident Bellefontaine Allan W. Eckert was born in Buffalo, New York, and was raised in and around Chicago, Illinois. Eckert was a child with an intense love of nature. “I remember crawling about in the gangways between buildings or in vacant lots, overturning boards and pieces of tin …
Read More Allan W. EckertBorn: January 25, 1914Died: July 9, 1998 Ohio connection: Birth Bellefontaine Mixing the pathos of surrealism with the impishness of cartoons, James Flora was the master of hand-drawn album cover art before the record industry’s switch to photographic covers in 1956. In the 1940s, Flora was one of the first artists to design and illustrate album covers, thereby …
Read More James FloraBorn: January 20, 1855Died: December 23, 1914 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Alfred Henry Lewis, the son of Isaac J. Lewis (a carpenter), was born January 20, 1855, in Cleveland, Ohio. In February 1876 when he was 21 years old, Lewis was licensed to practice law, making him one of the youngest men to be admitted to the bar …
Read More Alfred Henry LewisBorn: June 3, 1886Died: June 22, 1947 Ohio connection: Birth St. Mary’s Jim Tully was a colorful character, boxer, and American writer has been described as a “hobo novelist.” He achieved both critical and commercial success during the 1920s and 1930s, and Tully biographers Paul J. Bauer and Mark Dawidziak described him as “the greatest …
Read More Jim TullyBorn: 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 AllenBorn: 1952 Ohio connection: Birth Akron The first African American and the youngest individual to be awarded the post of United States Poet Laureate (1993-95), Rita Dove desires to make poetry more appealing to the general reader. Dove was born in Akron, Ohio, into a highly-educated family whose house was full of books. An avid reader …
Read More Dove, RitaNow that the television series Game of Thrones is over and GRRM is still working on the book series, what are you going to do now? Well, Ohio has a number of authors that are known for sci-fi and/or fantasy sagas. Try one of these (just to name a few) while you’re waiting to find …
Read More Game of Thrones is over! Now what? Try these Ohio authors!Born: 1924 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Herbert Gold was born in 1924, the eldest of the four sons of Samuel S. Gold and Frieda (Frankel) Gold. When he was in grade school, a teacher, Ruth Collins, told him that he would be a writer, and this impressed the boy so much that he “had to …
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