Born: April 21, 1935 Died: May 6, 2004 Ohio connection: Resident Cleveland Daniel Thompson was a poet and activist who, in 1992, became the first Poet Laureate of Cuyahoga County, Ohio. A lifelong champion of civic and literary engagement, Thompson was born April 21, 1935, in Washington, D.C., but the Thompson family moved to Cleveland …
Read More Daniel ThompsonBorn: 1950 Ohio connection: Resident Cleveland Heights Tricia Springstubb has published over a dozen books for young readers. What Happened on Fox Street was published by HarperCollins in August 2010. Her adult fiction and essays have appeared in numerous literary journals, including The Iowa Review, Hunger Mountain, and Brain, Child, and she’s a frequent book critic for The Plain Dealer. She is …
Read More Springstubb, TriciaBorn: November 30, 1904Died: March 11, 1967 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Charles Allen Smart, son of George and Lucy (Allen) Smart, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1904. He received an A.B. degree from Harvard University in 1926. He worked for Doubleday, Page & Co. and Doubleday Doran (publishers) as an editorial assistant from 1927 until 1930. …
Read More Charles Allen SmartBorn: October 17, 1914 Died: January 28, 1996 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Born in Cleveland to Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, Jerry Siegel, along with boyhood friend Joe Shuster, created Superman, one of the most recognizable fictional characters of the 20th century. Siegel created the character of Superman, his background story and superpowers, while Joe Shuster worked as the artist, rendering Superman in his now familiar tights …
Read More Siegel, JerryBorn: July 10, 1914Died: July 30, 1992 Ohio connection: Resident Cleveland Joseph Shuster was born July 10, 1914, in Toronto, Canada, and moved to Cleveland with his family at the age of ten. From an early age Joe Shuster demonstrated a penchant for drawing, scrounging paper from various sources as his family was not wealthy. Shuster, …
Read More Joe ShusterBorn: 1975 Ohio connection: Birth Parma Writer Salvatore Scibona was born in Parma, Ohio, to an ethnic Italian-Polish family. In 1997 he graduated from St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and in 1999 he earned an M.F.A. from the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. In 2000 he was awarded …
Read More Scibona, SalvatoreBorn: 1945 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Ted Schwarz was born Theodore R. Schwarz in Cleveland, Ohio. He is the son of Theodore R. and Ruth Dorothy. Ted Schwarz attended Case Western Reserve University, 1964-66, 1971; New York Institute of Photography, 1965; and The University of the South School of Theology, 1992-1995. Ted Schwarz is a …
Read More Schwarz, TedBorn: 1957 Ohio connection: Birth Ashtabula Connie Schultz was raised in Ashtabula by working-class parents and received her bachelors degree in journalism from Kent State University in 1979. In addition to her biweekly column for the Cleveland Plain Dealer/Creators Syndicate, she has written two memoirs: Life Happens: And Other Unavoidable Truths and … And His Lovely Wife: A …
Read More Connie SchultzBorn: November 19, 1907Died: January 24, 1991 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Jack Warner Schaefer was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1907. Growing up in a house of voracious readers, Schaefer read everything from the exotic “Tarzan” stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs to the thrilling western fiction of Zane Grey. In 1910, Schaefer’s family moved to Lakewood, Ohio. …
Read More Jack SchaeferBorn: 1962 Ohio connection: Birth Mentor Michael G. Salinger was born in 1962, near Cleveland. A poet, performer, and educator, he is one of the earliest participants in the National Poetry Slam, former board member of Poetry Slam Inc., and current director of the organization’s summer writing and performance conference. Salinger is an eight time captain …
Read More Salinger, Michael