Born: July 16, 1935 Died: May 7, 2021 Ohio connection: Resident Yellow Springs Poet, anthologist, and biographer, Arnold Adoff was born July 16, 1935, in New York City. He was the son of immigrants from a town near the Polish-Russian border whose family had been decimated by the Holocaust. Growing up in New York City, Adoff …
Read More Arnold AdoffBorn: 1944 Ohio connection: Birth Gallipolis Born in Gallipolis and raised across the river in Wheeling, West Virginia, author, designer and illustrator Jan Adkins describes himself as “an explainer, a storyteller with words and images, an advocate for young minds, a resource for images, and a dinosaur holdout for simplicity and grace in illustration, design …
Read More Jan AdkinsBorn: 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 …
Read More Celeste NgOn Sunday, December 3, 2017 from 4:00 -7:00 p.m Mindy Hoffbauer, publicist for the bestselling novelist W. Bruce Cameron, will host a Lit Salon featuring Ohio Young Adult novelist Kristina McBride. To date, McBride has published four novels, i.e. THE TENSION OF OPPOSITES (2010), ONE MOMENT (2012), A MILLION TIMES GOODNIGHT (2016), and THE BAKERSVILLE …
Read More Register to meet YA author Kristina McBride on Sunday, December 3, 2017 in Springboro, OhioBorn: 1955 Ohio Connection: Born Steubenville Robin Yocum got his first job in the newspaper business as a young child delivering for the Wheeling Intelligencer in the town of Brilliant, Ohio. Growing up the son of a steelworker, he wanted to be a fireman or the second baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He went on …
Read More Yocum, RobinBorn: 1964 Ohio connection: Resident Cleveland Heights Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Dan Chaon is the acclaimed author of the novels Ill Will (2017), Await Your Reply (2009) You Remind Me of Me (2004) and the short story collections Fitting Ends (1996), Among the Missing (2001) and Stay Awake (2012). Among the Missing was a finalist for the 2001 National Book Award and was also listed …
Read More Chaon, DanBorn: October 9, 1899Died: August 28, 1978 Ohio connection: Resident Oberlin It was no accident that the most prominent figures in Bruce Catton’s Civil War histories were fellow Midwesterners and personal heroes Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant. Born in Petosky, Michigan, Catton attended Oberlin College and became a reporter after serving briefly in the …
Read More Bruce CattonBorn: 1962 Ohio connection: Resident Springfield International cartoonist and children’s book illustrator, David J. Catrow was born in Richmond, Virginia. As a boy, his favorite subject in school was drawing… in math class! Even though he intended to pursue a “sensible” profession, drawing silly pictures turned out to be Catrow’s destiny. He attended Kent State University, …
Read More Catrow, David J.Born: December 16, 1847Died: December 26, 1902 Ohio connection: Birth Hebron Mary Hartwell Catherwood was born in Luray, Ohio, in 1847. Her parents, Marcus and Phoebe Thompson Hartwell, both died when she was 11, leaving her and two siblings to be raised by grandparents in Hebron, Ohio. She was highly motivated, beginning a career as a schoolteacher at …
Read More Mary Hartwell CatherwoodBorn: September 4, 1824Died: July 31, 1871 Ohio connection: Birth Mount Healthy Phoebe Cary was born in 1824 in Mount Healthy, Ohio, one of eleven children of Robert and Elizabeth Jessup Cary. She grew up on a farm and had little formal education. Under the tutelage of her older sister Alice, she developed a great love for literature …
Read More Phoebe Cary