Category: Literature

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 …

Born: 1950 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Linda Nemec Foster is the granddaughter of Polish immigrants, a fact that informs her poetry in the volume Amber Necklace from Gdansk. In 2003 Foster was named the first poet laureate of Grand Rapids, Michigan, in honor of her body of work and her efforts to promote a love of literature …

Born: 1935 Ohio connection: Birth Cincinnati Elizabeth Drew was born Elizabeth Brenner, daughter of William J. and Estelle (Jacobs) Brenner, in 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio. She received a B.A. from Wellesley College in 1957. In 1964 she married J. Patterson Drew, and also began doing freelance writing. She became the Washington editor for the Atlantic Monthly in 1967, …

Born: 1950 Ohio connection: Birth Toledo Denise Fleming was born in Toledo, Ohio, to Frank and Inez Campbell Fleming, growing up in a comfortable middle-class family. Her father spent his free time building furniture; her mother was very active in local theater. As a child, Fleming enjoyed painting, drawing, and making things out of papier-mâché. In …

Born: 1944 Ohio connection: Former Resident Columbus Nicholas Guild, son of Walter Francis and Gertrude (Mowry) Guild, was born in 1944 in California. He received a B.A. from Occidental College in 1966, followed by an M.A. in 1968 and a Ph.D. in 1972, both from The University of California, Berkeley. He married Suzanne Weil on March …

Born: 1952 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Susan Grimm was born in Cleveland, Ohio and grew up on the west side of the city until age thirteen, when her family moved to Brecksville, Ohio.  Grimm, who has a B.A. in Anthropology and an M.A. in English from Cleveland State University, did not pursue writing seriously until …

Born: 1951 Ohio connection: Birth Hudson A writer with a preference for manual typewriters, Ian Frazier was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1951 and grew up in Hudson, Ohio. He was the eldest of five children born to David (a Standard Oil research chemist) and Margaret Kathryn Hursh Frazier (a high school teacher). Before graduating with …

Born: 1958 Ohio connection: Resident Worthington Born in New York, NY, Kathy Fagan received an MFA from Columbia University and a PhD in English from the University of Utah. In 2017, she was named Ohio Poet of the Year. Her first book, The Raft (1985), was a National Poetry Series selection and her second book, Moving …

Born: 1958 Ohio connection: Birth Columbus Michael Duffy was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio.  He graduated from Oberlin College in 1980. Duffy served as Time magazine’s Washington bureau chief from 1997 until 2005, when he was named assistant managing editor. Previously, he was a national political correspondent, and, from 1986 to 1996, covered Congress and both the …

Born: July 20, 1923 Died: February 11, 2010 Ohio connection: Birth Lakewood Born in Lakewood, Ohio in 1923, Mary Dowling Daley’s father, Thomas Dowling, directed circulation for the Scripps-Howard newspapers, including the Cleveland Press. She moved many times as a child and an adult, helping to organize a rent strike at a housing project in Asheville, N.C. She …