Category: Literature

Ruth Awad

BORN: 1987 OHIO CONNECTION: Resident Columbus In 1976, Ruth Awad’s father fled Abou Samra, Tripoli, Lebanon, to seek asylum in England during the Lebanese Civil War. After immigrating to the United States in the 1980s, he attended Southern Illinois University in Carbondale where he met Awad’s mother. Awad’s mother, a nurse, painted as a hobby. …

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Kazim Ali

BORN: 1971 OHIO CONNECTION: Resident Oberlin Born in London on April 5, 1971, to Muslim immigrants of Indian, Iranian, and Egyptian descent (political refugees from India), Kazim Ali became fascinated with poetry from his father’s eloquent readings from the Qur’an. After a residency in Jenpeg, Manitoba, between 1975 and 1979, Ali’s family relocated to Buffalo, New …

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Public invited to Siegel and Shuster Induction Ceremony into the Jewish-American Hall of Fame, Sunday, Nov. 14

Public invited to Siegel and Shuster Induction Ceremony into the Jewish-American Hall of Fame, Sunday, Nov. 14

The November 14th program will feature Don Boozer, Manager of the Literature Department at Cleveland Public Library (home to one of the largest Superman memorabilia collections in the country) and Coordinator of the Ohio Center for the Book speaking on Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s connection to Cleveland, Ohio, and their lasting legacy to the …

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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 …

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Deborah Fleming

Born: 1950 Ohio Connection: Birth | Resident Steubenville | Perrysville Deborah Fleming is the quintessential Ohio author: born in Steubenville, raised in Bloomingdale, and residing in Perrysville. She is a poet, essayist, novelist, and scholar as well as the current editor (2002-present) and director (2016-present) of the Ashland Poetry Press. Earning her Ph.D. at Ohio …

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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 …

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