Born: 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: 1941 Ohio connection: Resident Columbus Patrick B. Mullen was born in Beaumont, TX, the son of Borden Calvin Mullen and Lorraine Terry Mullen. He earned a B.A. from Lamar State College in 1964; an M.A. from North Texas State University in 1965; and received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas in 1968. Mullen began …
Read More Patrick B. MullenBorn: 1954 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Thylias Moss was born Thylias Rebecca Brasier, daughter of Calvin Theodore and Florida Missouri (Gaiter) Brasier, in 1954 in Cleveland, Ohio. She was an only child who describes her childhood as being a happy one with doting parents. Moss wrote her first short story at the age of six and her …
Read More Thylias MossBorn: 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: 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 18, 1912Died: October 15, 1978 Ohio connection: Birth Elyria It was perhaps fate that an Elyria native, born in the same year as the tragic sinking of the Titanic, should devote his life to authoring books about life and death onboard ships. Dwight Boyer was born in Elyria, Ohio, on November 18,1912, and …
Read More Dwight BoyerBorn: 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 BourjailyBorn: 1949 Ohio connection: Birth Cincinnati Louise Walker Borden was born in 1949 to William Lee and Louise (Crutcher) Walker. Inspired by a grandmother who loved history, Borden grew up fascinated by the stories of ordinary people and their relation to historical events. An avid reader of nonfiction and historical fiction, Borden majored in history at …
Read More Borden, Louise