Born: 1954 Ohio connection: Resident Delaware Accomplished writer and professor, Robert M. Olmstead is the son of James Paul (a factory worker) and Adeline Olmstead. He was raised on a six generation dairy farm near Keene, New Hampshire not far from the banks of the Connecticut River. He has authored the novels America by Land, A Trail of Heart’s …
Read More Robert OlmsteadBorn: September 20, 1896 Dead: August 9, 1980 Ohio connection: Birth Dover Elliott John Nugent was born in 1899 in Dover, Ohio. He was the son of playwright/producer/actor, John C. Nugent, and Grace Mary (Fertig) Nugent. At the age of four, he began a long career in film, theater, and television. He first appeared in vaudeville …
Read More Elliott John NugentBorn: February 17, 1912Died: March 17, 2005 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Andre Norton was born Alice May Norton on February 17, 1912, in Cleveland, Ohio, to Freely Norton, a rug salesman, and Bertha Stemm Norton. She attended Collinwood High School where she wrote for the school newspaper. Intending to become a history teacher, she attended Western Reserve …
Read More Andre NortonBorn: 1946 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Dr. Marilyn Nelson, daughter of Melvin M. Nelson, (U.S.A.F. airman) and Johnnie Mitchell Nelson (teacher) was born in Cleveland. Nelson began writing in childhood. She earned her B.A. from the University of California, Davis, and holds postgraduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania (M.A., 1970) and the University of Minnesota (Ph.D., …
Read More Marilyn NelsonBorn: August 20, 1833 Died: February 15, 1888 Ohio connection: Birth Toledo Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby was born David Ross Locke in 1833 in Vestal, New York. His family later moved to the village of Marathon, where he left school after completing grades 1-5. In 1845, at the age of twelve, David was hired by the Cortland …
Read More Petroleum Vesuvius NasbyBorn: 1960 Ohio connection: Birth Columbus Born in Newark, Ohio (the city that serves as the model for the fictitious Cedar Hill in many of his stories), Gary Braunbeck writes in a number of different genres, but principally horror. He is the author of more than 18 books; his fiction has been translated into Japanese, French, …
Read More Braunbeck, Gary A.Born: 1949 Ohio connection: Birth Columbus Lois McMaster Bujold, winner of numerous Nebula and Hugo awards for her outstanding science fiction and fantasy writing, was born in Columbus, Ohio. She credits her father, Robert Charles McMaster, a former engineering professor at The Ohio State University, for introducing her to science fiction novels and magazines when she …
Read More Bujold, Lois McMasterBorn: 1955 Ohio connection: Resident Youngstown Poet, publisher, educator, and writer Phillip Brady was born and raised in New York City. Brady received a B.A. from Bucknell University, M.A.’s from the University of Delaware and San Francisco State University, and a Ph.D. in English from SUNY Binghamton; he has been an Ohio resident since 1990. Brady …
Read More Philip BradyBorn: November 25, 1899Died: April 25, 1982 Ohio connection: Birth Springfield Although an author of Westerns and a successful screenwriter, William Riley Burnett is best known as the originator of the gangster novel. The underworld icons of sleek cars, flashy clothes, bootleg liquor, and tommy guns find their origins in Burnett’s first novel, Little Caesar (1929). The …
Read More William Riley BurnettBorn: September 17, 1922Died: August 31, 2010 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Vance Nye Bourjaily, the son of Monte Ferris Bourjaily (journalist) and Barbara Webb (writer), was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1922. His parents separated when he was eleven years old, and Bourjaily spent his childhood growing up in Connecticut, New York, and Virginia. In 1939, he …
Read More Vance Nye Bourjaily