Category: Fiction

Cynthia Rylant

Born: 1954 Ohio connection: Resident Rootstown It took Cynthia Rylant only one hour to write her first book, When I Was Young in the Mountains (1982), a collection of vignettes describing the years she spent with her grandparents in Appalachia. Born in Hopewell, Virginia, in 1954, Rylant spent her first four years in Illinois. When she was four, …

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Michael J. Rosen

Born: 1954 Ohio connection: Birth Columbus Michael Rosen was born in Columbus, Ohio, the eldest son of Marvin and Nona Rosen. His childhood home was in a new development situated amid a former pasture. It was there he explored construction sites and fields, collected cocoons, milkweed pods and chrysalises, gathered buckeyes, fed roadside horses, and fished. Rosen attended Kent State …

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Les Roberts

Born: 1937 Ohio connection: Resident Cleveland Heights Born Lester Roubert  in Chicago, Illinois, Les Roberts had his surname legally changed in 1968. Roberts is the son of Lester Nathaniel (a dentist) and Eleanor Sybil (Bauch) Roubert. He married Gail Medland in 1957 and they divorced in 1980 after having two children: Valerie Lynne and Darren Jon. Les …

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Conrad Richter

Born: October 13, 1890Died: October 30, 1968Ohio connection: Resident Cleveland Conrad Michael Richter was born October 13, 1890, in Pine Grove, Pennsylvania, and grew up in a series of tiny coal mining towns with his parents: John Absalom, a Lutheran minister, and Charlotte Esther (Henry) Richter. Richter’s formal schooling ended when he graduated from high school …

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James Renner

Born: 1978 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland James Renner, novelist, freelance journalist, and former newspaper editor, graduated from Kent State University in 2000 with a degree in English. He has also taught creative writing. Renner’s nonfiction books focus on unsolved crimes and strange stories from Ohio. While working as a staff writer for the alternative weekly, Cleveland Scene …

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Dawn Powell

Born: November 28, 1896Died:  November 14, 1965 Ohio connection: Birth Mount Gilead Novelist and playwright Dawn Powell, daughter of Roy K. and Hattie B. (Sherman) Powell, was born in 1896 in Mount Gilead, Ohio. Because her father was a traveling salesman and her mother died when Dawn was only six years old, the young Dawn was …

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Shelley Pearsall

Born: 1966 Ohio connection: Birth Silver Lake A native Ohioan, Shelley Pearsall has enjoyed writing and history since childhood. Before publishing, she was a public school teacher and a museum historian. In her spare time, she wrote historical scripts and short stories for Cleveland-area museums. Shelley Pearsall’s work and writing often has been influenced by her love …

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Susan Orlean

Born: 1955 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Susan Orlean is the daughter of Arthur and Edith Gross Orlean. In 1976, she obtained her B.A. from the University of Michigan. From 1983-1986, she was a staff writer for the Boston Phoenix. After a year spent with The Boston Globe as a columnist, she has been, since 1987, an editor for Rolling Stone …

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