Category: Literature

An Ohio Comics Conversation with Tom Batiuk and Jay Kalagayan

An Ohio Comics Conversation with Tom Batiuk and Jay Kalagayan

The Ohio Center for the Book was fortunate to be asked by the Ohioana Library to host an outreach event for the Ohioana Book Festival this year. Tom Batiuk of Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft fame and Jay Kalagayan, creator, writer, and publisher of MeSseD Comics, had a wide-ranging conversation with our Scholar-in-Residence Dr. Valentino Zullo. …

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Celeste Ng

Born: 1980 Ohio Connection: Former resident; High school alumna Shaker Heights Celeste Ng was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but moved to Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, before she turned ten. Her parents immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong in the 1960s. Ng attended the schools in the Shaker Heights School District from …

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Dove, Rita

Born: 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 …

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Nnedi Okorafor

Born: 1974 Ohio connection: Birth Cincinnati Nigerian-American writer Nnedimma Nkemdili Okorafor (formerly Okorafor-Mbachu) was born on in Cincinnati, Ohio. A writer of fantasy, science fiction and speculative fiction for both children and adults, Okorafor’s novels and stories reflect her Nigerian heritage and her life in the United States. Okorafor’s books have generated a fan base that include …

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Greene, Bob

Born: 1947  Ohio connection: Birth  Columbus Robert Bernard Greene, Jr., son of Robert Bernard and Phyllis Ann (Harmon) Greene, was born in 1947 in Columbus, Ohio. He received a Bachelor of Journalism from Northwestern University in 1969. He married Susan Bonet Koebel in 1971, and they have two children. Greene worked as a reporter for the Chicago …

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