Born: 1942 Ohio connection: Birth Canton Reading late at night with a flashlight under the covers, Stephanie Tolan discovered early on the magic of the written word. Born in Canton, Ohio, and raised in Wisconsin, Tolan wrote her first story in fourth grade. Although she had received rejection slips by the time she was 11, Tolan …
Read More Tolan, Stephanie S.Born: December 8, 1894Died: November 2, 1961 Ohio connection: Birth Columbus James Grover Thurber was an author, cartoonist, journalist, and playwright known for his humor and wit. Born on December 8, 1894, in Columbus, Ohio, he was the son of Charles Leander Thurber and Mary Agnes (née Fisher) Thurber. After graduating from East High School in …
Read More James Grover ThurberBorn: 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: 1943 Ohio connection: Resident Toledo Mildred Delois Taylor was born in 1943 in Jackson, Mississippi, to Wilbert Lee and Deletha M. Taylor. Although born in the South, her family moved to the North, settled in Toledo, Ohio, three weeks after she was born. The Taylors’ migration to the North was because her father did …
Read More Taylor, Mildred D.Born: 1955 Ohio connection: Birth Columbus Debbie Taylor was born in Columbus, Ohio. She grew up in a large family and was educated in Columbus Public Schools. She graduated from Ohio Dominican College with a two-year degree, earned a B.A. from Case Western Reserve University and eventually received her M.A from Cleveland State University. Her short …
Read More Taylor, Debbie A.Ohio connection: Resident Vermillion Marilou Suszko is a food writer whose work appears in newspapers and magazines. She is a regular contributor to the Cleveland Plain Dealer Food Section, the Sunday Magazine and Feast. Farms and Foods of Ohio: From Garden Gate to Dinner Plate is her first book. Suszko is a Level III graduate from Western Reserve School of Cooking. She is …
Read More Suszko, Marilou K.Born: June 14, 1811Died: July 1, 1896 Ohio connection: Resident Cincinnati Author and social reformer Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose Uncle Tom’s Cabin helped galvanize anti-slavery efforts across the nation, was a Connecticut native who spent the years 1832–1850 in Cincinnati, Ohio, settling in the Walnut Hills area. During those eighteen years, she would become a wife, …
Read More Harriet Beecher StoweBorn: 1943 Ohio connection: Birth Columbus Entered into the Guinness World Records 2000: Millennium Edition as author of the world’s top-selling children’s stories, Robert Laurence Stine was born in Columbus, Ohio. When he was nine years old, he began writing short stories, jokes, and comic books for his friends. He attended Ohio State University and …
Read More R.L. StineBorn: 1934 Ohio connection: Birth Toledo Gloria Steinem, writer and feminist icon, was born in Toledo, Ohio. After a difficult childhood that included her parent’s divorce and her mother’s mental illness, Steinem won a scholarship to Smith College, where she studied government and politics, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1956. She soon broke off …
Read More Steinem, GloriaBorn: June 15, 1931Died: August 15, 1996 Ohio connection: Birth Columbus George Edwin Starbuck, son of George W. and Anna Margaret Polaski (born Starbuck) Beiswanger, was born June 15, 1931, in Columbus, Ohio. George Edwin’s surname was legally changed from Beiswanger to Starbuck after his parents’ divorce. Starbuck grew up in Illinois and California. At age 16, …
Read More George Edwin Starbuck