Festival Authors | Columbus Book Festival

Shalini Abeysekara

This Blade of Ours

Shalini Abeysekara is the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of This Monster of Mine. As a former corporate lawyer, she enjoys using fantasy to interrogate reality, exploring monstrosity, perceived and real, and centering neurodivergent women of color reckoning with themselves and their place in a world that tells them they’re too much and not enough.
This Blade of Ours picks up where This Monster of Mine left off in 2025, bringing an even spicier blend of romance, blood magic, and high stakes. Secrets buried in ice, a reckoning from the gods, and a love tested by power drive this dark, politically charged fantasy.

Shalini Abeysekara

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Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw

Backtalker

Kimberle Williams Crenshaw

Kimberlé is a pioneering scholar and writer on civil rights, Black feminist legal theory, race, racism and is a Distinguished Professor of Law at Columbia University. She is known for introducing and developing the concept of intersectionality and hosts the podcast, Intersectionality Matters!

Backtalker traces Kimberlé’s journey from Canton, Ohio, to global influence, weaving personal history with pivotal moments in U.S. culture and law. The memoir offers an intimate portrait of a scholar whose lifelong practice of “talking back” helped shape conversations on race, gender, and power.

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw

TJ Klune

We Burned So Bright

TJ Klune

TJ Klune is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of The House in the Cerulean Sea, Under the Whispering Door, In the Lives of Puppets, and more. As a queer author, Klune believes in writing accurate, positive queer representation in stories.

We Burned So Bright follows longtime husbands Don and Rodney on an end‑of‑the‑world road trip as a wandering black hole approaches Earth. Amid bonfires, makeshift weddings, and strangers clinging to joy, the couple races across the country to settle unfinished business and to ask what a good life requires.

tjklunebooks.com

Paul Tremblay

Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep

Paul Tremblay

Paul Tremblay is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of eight previous novels and two short fiction collections. Tremblay’s fiction blends razor edge tension with mordant wit in novels that are eerily unsettling.

Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep delivers a near future nightmare where tech dread meets dark comedy. A professional gamer remote controls a mostly dead guy across the country in this genre-bending horror/thriller exploring surveillance, identity, and the slippery line between absurdity and terror.

paultremblay.net

Lisa See

Daughters of the Sun and Moon

Lisa See

Lisa See is the New York Times bestselling author of Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, The Island of Sea Women, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, and more. See was named National Woman of the Year by the Organization of Chinese American Women.

Daughters of the Sun and Moon illuminates the forgotten history of the 1871 Chinese Massacre in Los Angeles through the intertwined stories of three women who survive and ultimately thrive despite violence, displacement, and systemic prejudice. The novel blends historical detail with emotional depth and resilience by an internationally acclaimed author known for meticulous research and powerful narratives.

lisasee.com

Laura Dave

The First Time I Saw Him

Laura Dave

Laura Dave’s pulse pounding thrillers, The Last Thing He Told Me and The Night We Lost Him have been New York Times bestsellers. Her novels have sold more than six million copies and have been translated into 40 languages. The Last Thing He Told Me was the 2021 Goodreads Mystery & Thriller of the Year and was made into an Apple TV+ series, co-created by Laura.

The First Time I Saw Him picks up immediately after the original novel. When Hannah Hall glimpses her supposedly missing husband, Owen, Hannah and her stepdaughter Bailey are forced into a dangerous flight from their past. As they uncover the truth behind Owen’s reappearance, Hannah risks everything to protect Bailey and reclaim a second chance at love.

lauradave.com

Ellery Adams

Invasive Species

Ellery Adams is the USA Today & New York Times bestselling author of over forty mystery novels. She’s written multiple series including The Secret, Book, & Scone Society, The Book Retreat, and The Books By the Bay mysteries.

Her novel Invasive Species blends mythology, fantasy, and folklore horror with a nostalgic coming‑of‑age thread. Known for nuanced women in her bestselling mysteries, Adams here delivers equally irresistible characters in a genre‑defying tale that asks what stories we inherit and what monsters we invite. Think Circe meets Stranger Things.

Ellery Adams

Whitney Amazeen

The Wrong Kind of Falling

Whitney Amazeen writes cute, cozy love stories with a sprinkle of faith. She can often be found playing Sims, snuggling with her dogs, and obsessing over Jesus. Whitney lives in Arizona with her husband, children, and expansive tea collection.

In The Wrong Kind of Falling, a church‑loving dog groomer who struggles with trust collides with a reformed bad‑boy MMA fighter determined to change her mind. Expect cozy chemistry, clean romance, and playful banter as both learn to risk their hearts.

Whitney Amazeen

Ilona Andrews

This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me

Ilona Andrews, the #1 New York Times bestselling author duo, launches an epic portal‑fantasy adventure that blends propulsive plotting, romance, and sharp worldbuilding for fans of big‑canvas fantasy.

In This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, Maggie finds herself stranded inside Rellas, a world she knows from a famously unfinished book series. Though she cannot die, the living characters surrounding her can, and the looming threat of a cataclysmic war threatens them all. Drawn into the schemes of rival princes, dukes and villains, she must rewrite fate to save this fictional kingdom she has grown to love.

Ilona Andrews

Jedediah Berry

Kill All Wizards

Jedediah Berry

Jedediah Berry pivots from the layered dystopia of his critically acclaimed book, The Naming Song to this brisk Swords‑and‑Sorcery caper, promising gleeful mayhem, memorable characters, and a fresh twist on high society.

In Kill All Wizards, a barbarian ensorcelled and exploited by the empire’s mages vows revenge, infiltrating their tea‑soaked salons and theater boxes to strike from within. Think Conan the Barbarian meets a comedy of manners, with blood and wit in equal measure.

Third Archive

Connie Berry

A Grave Deception: A Kate Hamilton Mystery

Connie Berry lives in Delaware, Ohio, and writes the acclaimed Kate Hamilton series, perfect for readers who enjoy English history, detective fiction, cozy mystery settings, and the world of antiques.

In A Grave Deception: A Kate Hamilton Mystery, antiques expert Kate Hamilton is pulled into a chilling case when a preserved fourteenth‑century body is uncovered in a plague village. Tests reveal murder and a pregnancy, and Kate is asked to identify the victim and her killer while appraising grave goods that hold dangerous clues.

Connie Berry

Regina Black

August Lane

Regina Black

Regina Black is a former civil litigator, current law school administrator, and lifelong romance reader who has always been passionate about the depiction of Black women in popular culture. She currently resides in Little Rock, Arkansas with her husband and daughter.

August Lane became an instant USA Today bestseller and a New York Times Notable Book of 2025. This inclusive romance follows country star Luke Randall, who dreads performing his hit “Another Love Song,” as he’s asked to open for icon JoJo Lane’s Hall of Fame induction. Forced to collaborate with JoJo’s daughter August, the lyricist he once betrayed, Luke confronts fame, lies, and a second chance at love.

Regina Black

Jenna Blum

Murder Your Darlings

Jenna Blum is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of three novels, Those Who Save Us, The Stormchasers, and The Lost Family. Jenna is one of Oprah’s Top 30 Women Writers and CEO/CoFounder of on-air author interview broadcast A Mighty Blaze. Jenna has degrees from Boston University and Kenyon College and currently resides in downtown Boston.

In her first psychological thriller, Murder Your Darlings, a mid‑career novelist falls for a brilliant, charming author who may be targeting women writers. As a stalker called the Rabbit and fervent fans cloud the truth, this sly industry send‑up asks how far someone will go for love when nothing is as it seems.

Jenna Blum

Meryl Branch-McTiernan

What You Should Worry About

Meryl Branch‑McTiernan crafts contemporary fiction with sharp comic beats and emotional intelligence, introducing a voice attuned to resilience, intimacy, and the ways we make home in uncertain times.

What You Should Worry About is a witty, heartfelt debut about Layla Moody, thirty‑seven and mid‑lockdown, piecing together family on her own terms. As isolation reshapes her world, Layla finds humor, tenderness, and hard truths in a story that turns pandemic days into a search for connection.

What You Should Worry About

Lynn Cahoon

Confessions of an Amateur Sleuth

Lynn Cahoon is a New York Times bestselling author known for cozy series with engaging bookstore and culinary settings. Her mysteries blend small‑town warmth with page‑turning whodunits.

In Confessions of an Amateur Sleuth, Bainbridge Island bookseller Meg Gates investigates the murder of a crabby food critic, tangling with publishing gossip and restaurant rivalries, in this Pacific Northwest cozy.

Lynn Cahoon

Christopher Castellani

Last Seen

Christopher Castellani, an award‑winning novelist and teacher, pivots to true‑crime and speculative elements in his latest novel.

Last Seen is a literary, psychological thriller in which four college‑aged men from the Midwest and New England are found dead in local waters. The victims narrate from the afterlife while loved ones search for answers, confronting obsession, addiction, and the fragile stories the living tell to survive.

Christopher Castellani

Radha Lin Chaddah

And the Ancestors Sing

Radha Lin Chaddah brings a uniquely international perspective to her writing, with a heritage that includes East Indian and Malaysian Chinese roots and lived experiences across Kenya, the UK, the US, in addition to a decade practicing medicine in China. She now lives with her family in Philadelphia.

In And the Ancestors Sing, intersecting stories trace decades of transformation in post–Cultural Revolution China. Beginning in 1978, Lei is traded into marriage, forced to migrate to the city, and separated from her children. The book follows rural and urban lives reshaped by disaster, choice, and relentless change.

Radha Lin Chaddah

John Chu

The Subtle Art of Folding Space

Hugo Award winner John Chu has a celebrated career in translation and short‑fiction across venues like Asimov’s and Clarkesworld. In his debut novel, The Subtle Art of Folding Space, Builder Ellie dodges her sister’s assassins, protects her comatose mother, and confronts a cabal intent on hijacking the machine that keeps worlds intact. Multiverse physics, family dysfunction, and dim sum collide in a poignant, propulsive debut.

John Chu

Kate Clayborn

The Paris Match

Kate Clayborn is known for character‑forward love stories that balance humor with heart. This standalone continues her focus on adult relationships, thoughtful stakes, and swoony payoffs. In The Paris Match, a woman tests the boundaries of an amicable divorce when she flies to Paris for her former sister‑in‑law’s destination wedding and clashes with the gruff best man. What begins as prickly banter turns toward possibility, as Paris sets the stage for second chances and a tender, grown‑up romance.

Kate Clayborn

Charlie Donlea

Guess Again

Internationally bestselling author Charlie Donlea writes his acclaimed thrillers from Chicago, where he was born and raised. His novels have sold nearly 2.5 million copies in the U.S. alone and are praised for their plot twists and jaw-dropping endings.

In Guess Again, a small Wisconsin town is haunted by trauma, plagued by a fascination with evil, and battered by the heavy toll of the truth. Readers can expect brisk pacing, sharp twists, and a case that refuses to stay cold.

Charlie Donlea

Mazey Eddings

You Won’t Forget Me

Mazey Eddings is a bestselling author, dentist, and (most importantly) stage mom to her cats, Yaya and Zadie. She can most often be found reading romance novels under her weighted blanket and asking her husband to bring her snacks. She’s made it her personal mission in life to distinguish mental health issues and write love stories for every brain. With roots in Ohio and Philadelphia, she now calls North Carolina home.

You Won’t Forget Me follows indie music darling Cubby and her band as a viral photo sparks a tabloid‑ready love triangle, just as Cubby’s complicated feelings for best friend Darcy come to a head. Amid fame, grimy bus tour life, and rising pressure, summer becomes a reckoning for love and identity.

Mazey Eddings

David Ellis

Keep Them Close

David Ellis is a judge and an Edgar-award-winning author of ten novels of crime fiction, as well as eight bestselling books co-authored with James Patterson. His novels have been translated into more than ten languages worldwide. He has served as a justice of the Illinois Appellate Court since 2014. He lives outside Chicago with his wife and three children.

In Keep Them Close, Ellis delivers a domestic thriller about loyalty and betrayal. When Allison’s husband is murdered, the investigation threatens to expose the darkest secrets she shares with her brother, forcing choices that could destroy them both.

David Ellis

Loretta Ellsworth

The Jilted Countess

Loretta earned a master’s degree in writing for Children from Hamline University. She’s the author of novels for adults and younger readers. Her books have been a Rebecca Caudill nominee, won the Midwest Bookseller’s Choice Honor Award, a Teen’s Top Ten finalist, an IRA Notable, named to the New York Library’s List of Books for the Teen Age, and a Kirkus Pick of the Month. Loretta Ellsworth crafts historical fiction with heart and clear‑eyed empathy, inviting readers into questions of love, identity, and belonging.

The Jilted Countess reimagines a true story of post‑World War II, when a young Hungarian émigré, jilted and heartbroken, enlists a Midwestern newspaper editor to help her find an American husband. The novel explores the American dream, reinvention, and the cost of choosing your own happiness.

Loretta Ellsworth

Sonia Feldman

Girl’s Girl

Sonia Feldman won the PEN America PEN/Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, and her poetry and fiction have appeared in The Missouri Review, The Southern Review, and Waxwing. She also runs Sonia’s Poem of the Week, a popular email newsletter. Sonia lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

Her hypnotic debut, Girl’s Girl, captures intimacy and adolescent volatility with sharp observation and heart, introducing a new voice with a keen eye for friendship, identity, and change. A pivotal Midwestern summer fractures a trio’s delicate balance after an unexpected kiss. Through sun‑drenched days of selfies, sleepovers, and shifting loyalties, Mina looks back on first desire and the fragile rituals of girlhood, asking how love reshapes every relationship, including the one we have with ourselves.

Sonia Feldman

Marshall Fine

Hemlock Lane

Minneapolis native Marshall Fine has a career that spans 50 years of journalism, critique and filmmaking. He writes domestic fiction about families, parenting and coming‑of‑age.

Hemlock Lane follows a young woman whose return home becomes a reckoning. Across four tense days in the summer of 1967, family secrets, buried histories, and the bonds that sustain or suffocate collide, forcing her to decide which ties to honor and which to release.

Marshall Fine

Amanda Flower

Truffle Trouble

Amanda Flower is the USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award-winning mystery author of over twenty-five novels, including the nationally bestselling Amish Candy Shop Mystery Series, the Amish Matchmaker Mysteries, and several series written under the name Isabella Alan. An organic farmer and former librarian, Amanda lives in Northeast Ohio.

In Truffle Trouble, the USA Today–bestselling Amish Candy Shop Mysteries come to Harvest, Ohio, where summer wedding season brings new sweetness and a fresh whodunit. Chocolatier Bailey King balances romance with Sheriff Aiden Brody and a quirky investigation that mixes confectionery clues with Amish community life.

Amanda Flower

Kristina Forest

The Summer Girlfriend

Kristina Forest is the USA Today bestselling author of romance books for adults and teens. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing at The New School and she lives in New Jersey, where she can often be found rearranging her bookshelf. Kristina writes inclusive contemporary romances with glamorous settings, bighearted stakes, and sincere happily‑ever‑afters.

The Summer Girlfriend pairs a stand‑in girlfriend with a handsome business heir in a sunny fake‑dating setup that turns real. Sparkling banter and high‑gloss summer vibes deliver a romance about taking risks, honoring ambition, and choosing the love that fits.

Kristina Forest

Jeaniene Frost

A Curse of Beasts and Magic

Jeaniene Frost, New York Times bestselling author of The Night Huntress series, launches a new series that blends fierce magic, romantic tension, and cinematic worldbuilding.

In A Curse of Beasts and Magic, vigilante Raine Stone harbors a dangerous Beast that feeds on violence. When she heals a stranger and uncovers a hidden realm, Warden Remington Byrne pulls her into a fragile truce where attraction, power, and looming war collide. Deluxe edition includes sprayed edges, a map, and illustrated endpapers.

Jeaniene Frost

Sarah Gailey

Make Me Better

Hugo Award and British Fantasy Award winner Sarah Gailey is celebrated for genre bending fiction and a sharp eye for horror that interrogates the darkest corners of the self. Their nonfiction has been published by Mashable and The Boston Globe, and they won a Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. Their fiction credits also include Vice and The Atlantic. Their debut novella, River of Teeth, was a 2018 finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

In their novel Make Me Better, Celia travels to the remote island of Kindred Cove, a place renowned for miraculous ecology and whispered transformations. What begins as a search for healing becomes a disturbing descent into the Cove’s hungers, where connection, self improvement, and sacrifice intertwine in eerie and unexpected ways.

Sarah Gailey

Shaylin Gandhi

Love Letters for Other People

Shaylin Gandhi writes from the mountains of Golden, Colorado, where she lives with her husband and identical twin daughters. When not finagling words onto paper, Shaylin can be found hiking, scheming up ways to earn a new passport stamp, or ingesting enough coffee to power a small city.

In Love Letters for Other People, a disgraced mathematician returns to her rural hometown and falls for a man who woos her with beautiful letters. What she does not know is that he is paying her high‑school ex to write them. The result is a tender, complicated romance about truth, longing, and finding courage after heartbreak.

Shaylin Gandhi

Nicole Glover

The Starseekers: A Murder and Magic Novel

Nicole Glover is the author of the acclaimed historical fantasy series, Murder and Magic. Her books have received rave starred reviews for their unique blend of mystery, history, and fantasy. She’s been a Library Reads pick, made the Locus bestseller list, and won The Webster Award. She lives and works in Virginia plotting her next fictional murder.

The Starseekers follows Cynthia Rhodes, a NASA engineer in 1964 who solves murders using magic, mathematics, and sheer determination. From cursed objects to sunken treasure to a charming archaeologist love interest, this standalone blends historical fiction with whimsical magic and twisty adventure.

Nicole Glover

Shasta Grant

When We Were Feral

Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellow, Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest winner, and recipient of writing residencies from Hedgebrook and The Kerouac Project, Shasta Grant holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is the author of the chapbook Gather Us Up and Bring Us Home, and her stories and essays have appeared in cream city review, Epiphany, wigleaf, and elsewhere.

When We Were Feral follows thirteen‑year‑old Maggie in rural New Hampshire as a missing mother, a silent brother, and a classmate’s vanished mom pull three girls toward risky searches on backroads and in the woods. A charged encounter with older boys alters their path and their bond.

Shasta Grant

Kayla Hardy

The Quarter Queen

Kayla Hardy is a mythology expert and multi-hyphenate author and screenwriter of Louisiana Creole descent. She earned her PhD in creative writing and African American literature from SUNY Binghamton University. Dr. Hardy is an adjunct professor at SUNY Binghamton University and is an accomplished scholar of Black folklore, mythology, and Voodoo.

Her debut novel The Quarter Queen reimagines the life of Marie Laveau II in a magically divided nineteenth‑century New Orleans. When Ree finds her legendary mother comatose in the bayou, she must face enemies, witch hunters, and the secrets of Marie’s past to save her. The novel blends Black folklore, political intrigue, and coming‑of‑age fire.

Kayla Hardy

Angela Henry

Nobody Heard A Thing

Angela Henry is a bestselling and award-winning author of twisty mysteries, thrillers, and urban fantasy. She’s the author of the Kendra Clayton mystery series and the Xavier Knight series, as well as the thrillers The Perfect Affair, Her Pretty Lies, The Family Lies, and Nobody Heard A Thing. Angela lives in Ohio with her husband and their spoiled Chiweenie, Gidget.

In Nobody Heard A Thing, Ava has lived with survivor’s guilt since witnessing her best friend’s abduction at age ten. When a documentary filmmaker reopens the cold case, the abductor begins watching again, and the only witness must confront the past before it destroys the present.

Angela Henry

Emily Jane

Mr. Yay

Emily Jane is the USA Today bestselling author of fun, genre bending novels including On Earth as it Is on Television, Here Beside the Rising Tide, American Werewolves, and Mr. Yay. She lives on an urban farm in Cincinnati with her husband, their two kids, three cats and a husky.

Mr. Yay is a hilarious, speculative romp about a rap duo’s rise, a therapist whose life unravels, and her forgetful husband who recalls a children’s show that half the world remembers even though it seems never to have existed. Rappers, dogs, private eyes, conspiracies, and nostalgia collide.

Emily Jane

Jen Julian

Red Rabbit Ghost

Jen Julian’s previous publications include a short story collection, Earthly Delights and Other Apocalypses, as well as work in numerous literary journals. Jen holds a PhD in English from the University of Missouri and an MFA in Fiction from UNC Greensboro. A 2016 Clarion Alumna, she has contributed fiction both to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the Texas Book Festival. These days, Jen lives in the mountains of North Georgia with her enormous ginger cat and teaches creative writing at Young Harris College.

Red Rabbit Ghost drops an impulsive young outcast into an Appalachian town brimming with secrets. Atmospheric horror unfolds as Blacknot’s mysteries surface, evoking a Southern Twin Peaks vibe while the protagonist confronts the town’s uncanny heart.

Jen Julian

Adib Khorram

It Had To Be Him

Adib Khorram is a queer Iranian author of books for readers of all ages, including the multi-award winning young adult novel Darius the Great Is Not Okay, and picture books such as Tea Is Love. He serves on the board of directors for Authors Against Book Bans.

In his USA Today bestselling adult romance, It Had To Be Him, Ramin flies to Italy to recover from a rejected proposal and unexpectedly collides with Noah, his recently divorced high‑school crush. Their whirlwind romance feels like a dream until reality intrudes, including Noah’s responsibilities as a father and Ramin’s fear that he will never be enough.

Adib Khorram

Isabel J. Kim

Sublimation

Isabel J. Kim lives near New York City in an apartment filled with books and swords. She is the author of numerous short stories and has won the Nebula, Locus, and the Shirley Jackson Award. Her work has been translated into multiple languages and reprinted in multiple best of the year anthologies. When she’s not writing, she’s practicing law or podcasting.

Her debut novel Sublimation imagines a border that splits immigrants into two instances, one who stays and one who leaves. When Rose returns to Korea after her grandfather’s death, her other self plans to steal her life. Corporate intrigue, identity theft, and heartbreak power a razor‑sharp speculative thriller for fans of Severance.

Isabel J. Kim

Laura Piper Lee

Pot Shot

Laura Piper Lee has wanted to be an author since she was a kid. Well, she first wanted to be a mermaid, but that didn’t work out. She enjoys making people laugh, flirting, and avoiding exercise, so writing romantic comedies is pretty much a perfect career choice. She lives with her partner and their son in Philadelphia. If anyone’s rolling by the bagel shop, she’ll have an everything toasted with butter.

Pot Shot is an enemies‑to‑lovers, second‑chance romance where former high‑school rivals reunite in their hometown—one opening a dispensary and one working in his family’s clinic. Misunderstandings, rekindled heat, and personal stakes collide in a cannabis‑friendly comedy that brings modern nuance to the stoner‑romcom tradition.

Laura Piper Lee

Aleese Lin

Samantha Spük: Paranormal Wedding Planner

Aleese Lin is a fantasy writer who lives with her family in a hillside cottage overlooking Boston, Massachusetts. She is a 2022 Lambda Literary fellow, a Tin House workshop alumnus, and an educator.

In Samantha Spük, Sabby’s perfectly normal accounting life ends when her grandmother’s will drags her back to Salem and into a business planning weddings for werewolves, vampires, and fae. With a talking‑head sidekick and a lumberjacky love interest, Sabby must decide which life she truly wants in this laughter‑filled contemporary fantasy that pokes fun at beloved romantasy tropes while exploring identity, belonging, and hard‑won joy.

Aleese Lin

Stephanie Mack

Twenty Something Else

Stephanie Mack is an author with a passion for storytelling-on the page, on the mic, and beyond. Her novels blend faith, fiction and romance with meaningful insights for readers navigating the complexities of modern life. Stephanie lives in Orange County, California, with her husband, three daughters, and beloved mini Bernedoodle.

Twenty Something Else flips the classic body‑swap fantasy when a woman nearing forty wakes after a pickleball mishap with the chance to relive her twenties. What begins as a comic reset becomes a reflective, faith‑forward journey about purpose, love, and the choices that shape a life.

Stephanie Mack

Davin Malasarn

The Outer Country

Thai American scientist‑turned‑writer Davin Malasarn was born and raised in Southern California. He earned his MFA in creative writing from Bennington College and completed the Queens University of Charlotte Book Development Program. He was a PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow, a Plympton Writing Downtown Fellow, and a Bennington Alumni Fellow. He co-founded The Granum Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to supporting writers, and hosts The Artist’s Statement podcast.

In his debut novel The Outer Country, sisters Manda and Siripon reconnect when a new baby draws them together, then fracture again after a misguided exorcism sets off years of illness and bullying. Spanning Thailand’s mangroves, Los Angeles neighborhoods, and Stanford’s quads, this multigenerational novel explores migration, family love, and the harm we do in the name of care.

Davin Malasarn

Mia P. Manansala

Death and Dinuguan

Mia P. Manansala is a queer Filipino American writer from Chicago who loves books, baking, and bad-ass women. She is the author of the multi-award-winning Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery series and the YA novel, Death In The Cards. She uses humor (and murder) to explore aspects of the Filipino diaspora, queerness, and her love for Millennial pop culture.

In Death and Dinuguan, the final Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery, Lila Macapagal hunts a culprit behind a rash of attacks on women‑owned businesses that escalates to assault and murder. Family, Filipino food, and a tight community give Lila strength as she tracks a predator close to home.

Mia P. Manansala

Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay

Chitra Demands to Go Home

Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay, who goes by “Raj”, originally trained as a scientist. After earning a Ph.D. in biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology, Raj launched a career in science communications. Raj was selected by Poets & Writers to be one of the 2025 Get the Word Out fiction fellows.

In her debut novel, Chitra Demands to Go Home, a fiercely independent seventy‑something woman plans world travel after widowhood, only to be waylaid by illness and a move to an Ohio assisted living facility. With humor and heart, the novel explores mother‑son ties, cross‑cultural misunderstandings, and the stubborn will to define home.

Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay

Sahar Mustafah

The Slightest Green

Sahar Mustafah is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, an inheritance she explores in her fiction. Her debut novel The Beauty of Your Face was named a 2020 Notable Book and Editor’s Choice by New York Times Book Review and one of Marie Claire Magazine’s 2020 Best Fiction by Women. It was long-listed for the Center for Fiction 2020 First Novel Prize, and was a finalist for the Palestine Book Awards. She was awarded a 2023 Jack Hazard Fellowship from New Literary Project and an Illinois Arts Council Grant. Mustafah writes and teaches outside of Chicago.

The Slightest Green follows Intisar Jaber from Chicago back to Palestine when her estranged father is dying. As Intisar reconnects with her grandmother and confronts inheritance, exile, and contested belonging, the novel asks whether fractured family bonds can be mended before time runs out.

Sahar Mustafah

Emily Nemens

Clutch

Emily Nemens is the author of The Cactus League and former editor of The Paris Review, bringing literary insight and character‑driven nuance to her fiction. Her stories have appeared in BOMB, The Gettysburg Review, n+1, and elsewhere; her illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker and in collaboration with Harvey Pekar. She lives in central New Jersey with her husband and dog.

In Clutch, five women who have been friends for two decades confront the hardest seasons of their lives and discover how fragile, complicated, and essential long friendships can be. As each woman reaches for support, the novel asks how we extend a hand when we are barely hanging on ourselves.

Emily Nemens

Karen Odden

An Artful Dodge

Karen Odden is a multi‑award‑winning author with deep expertise in historical and crime fiction, known for richly researched Victorian settings and sharp psychological detail. She received her PhD in English from New York University and taught Victorian literature at UW-Milwaukee. She is the author of five crime novels set in 1870s London, including her USA Today bestselling debut, A Lady in the Smoke. Her work has been nominated for the Lefty, Anthony, Agatha, and Derringer Awards, and appeared in Best Mystery Stories of the Year. A transplant from New York, Karen lives in Arizona with her family.

An Artful Dodge plunges readers into Victorian London as a young woman attempts to escape the all‑female thieving gang that raised her. Stolen gems, shifting loyalties, and a dangerous criminal ring drive this heist‑infused historical mystery filled with grit, suspense, and resilience.

Karen Odden

Joe Pan

Florida Palms

Jon Pan, author of five poetry collections, was honored with a National Book Award win in Poetry and is the founding publisher of Brooklyn Arts Press. He lives in Hollywood, California. A seasoned speaker, he has toured nationally across festivals, radio, and TV, earning praise for vivid storytelling.

Florida Palms follows Eddy and Cueball, best friends graduating into the Great Recession who join a moving crew with dangerous ties. When a shady old boss arrives, a routine haul becomes a cross‑state run of designer drugs, sending the boys into a coming‑of‑age odyssey where loyalty and survival collide.

Joe Pan

Nick Petrie

The Dark Time

Nick Petrie is the author of nine novels in the Peter Ash series. His debut, The Drifter, won both the ITW Thriller award and the Barry Award for Best First Novel, and was a finalist for the Edgar and the Hammett Awards. A husband and father, he lives in the Milwaukee area.

In The Dark Time, journalist KT Thorsen receives a specific death threat just as Peter Ash arrives to protect her. Violence erupts the moment he reaches town, pulling him into a frantic search to protect KT and her daughter while uncovering the truth behind a shadowy group prepared to accelerate the end of the world.

Nick Petrie

Virginia Pye

Marriage and Other Monuments

Virginia Pye grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and moved back after thirty-five years living up and down the East Coast. Upon returning, she was struck by how Boston, and specifically Cambridge, is noticeably more bookish than all the other cities where she’d lived. She is the author of five books published over the past decade, all launched after age fifty‑three. A champion of late‑blooming writers, she encourages readers and creatives to pursue their dreams at any stage.

In Marriage and Other Monuments, two estranged sisters struggle through a turbulent summer in 2020 Richmond, where social‑justice protests and the removal of Confederate statues mirror the fracturing of their own marriages. As secrets unravel and loyalties are tested, the novel examines identity, reckoning, and what it means to create a life built on truth.

Virginia Pye

Alisha Rai

Enemies to Lovers

Alisha Rai is an author and attorney who pens award-winning adult and young adult romances. Her novels have been named Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post, NPR, Amazon, Entertainment Weekly, Kirkus, and Cosmopolitan magazine. When she’s not writing, Alisha loves to spend time with her husband and son.

Enemies to Lovers pairs a con woman and a lawman on an epic road trip to save their families. High‑energy hijinks, crackling chemistry, and cross‑country stakes turn this adventure rom‑com into a heartfelt race toward redemption and love.

Alisha Rai

Sarah Mughal Rana

Dawn of the Firebird

Sarah Mughal Rana is an MPhil student at the University of Oxford, studying at the intersection of economic policy and human rights. Beyond the page, Sarah co-hosts the On The Write Track podcast, where she spills the tea with bestselling authors. Her short fiction has appeared in several anthologies. When she’s not writing, you can find her diving into history rabbit holes or honing her skills in traditional martial arts. Sarah is the author of the YA title Hope Ablaze.

Her debut fantasy trilogy for adults, Dawn of the Firebird, launches a sweeping fantasy as Khamilla, daughter of a deposed emperor, infiltrates a rival empire’s magical army to exact revenge. War looms, jinn magic twists the land, and Khamilla must choose salvation or vengeance in a world shaped by Islamic lore and myth.

Sarah Mughal Rana

Vanessa Riley

Fire Sword & Sea

Vanessa Riley is an award-winning author of over twenty-eight novels. Her works spotlight hidden narratives of Black women and women of color, emphasizing power, sisterhoods, and family sagas across historical fiction, romance, and mystery genres. With a doctorate from Stanford University and other engineering degrees from Penn State, Vanessa brings a research-oriented approach to her inclusive storytelling about Caribbean, Georgian, and Regency eras.

Fire Sword & Sea follows Jacquotte Delahaye, a woman who refuses the roles forced on her in the 1600s and disguises herself as a man to forge freedom as a pirate. When her crew edges toward the slave trade, she must confront what freedom truly means amid peril, rebellion, and the untold histories of Black and Indigenous pirates.

Vanessa Riley

Kaira Rouda

We Were Never Friends

Kaira Rouda is an award–winning USA Today and Amazon Charts bestselling author of contemporary fiction that explores what goes on beneath the surface of seemingly perfect lives. Her novels of domestic suspense include Jill is Not Happy, The Widow, Somebody’s Home, The Next Wife, The Favorite Daughter, Best Day Ever, All the Difference, Beneath the Surface (optioned for a feature film), Under the Palms, The Next Mrs. Strom, and What the Nanny Saw.

In We Were Never Friends, former sorority sisters reunite in Palm Springs for an engagement celebration that quickly turns deadly. As old secrets surface and long‑buried rivalries ignite, the novel unravels privilege, deception, and the darker side of grown‑ups behaving badly, all set against a luxe desert backdrop.

Kaira Roua

Angela Shupe

In the Light of the Sun

Angela Shupe is an award-winning author whose short stories, essays and articles have appeared in various literary publications. Angela is an active member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association and the Historical Novel Society. Holding a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Detroit, Angela has worked as an editor for a publishing company and as a communications coordinator for a public school district.

Her debut novel In the Light of the Sun follows two sisters separated by World War II and by oceans, bound through music and unwavering love. As they endure global conflict and personal sacrifice, the novel explores resilience, hope, and the ability of art to sustain the human spirit in the darkest moments.

Angela Shupe

Frederick Smith

Love Is A Contact Sport

Frederick Smith writes Black, queer contemporary novels that discuss MM romance, identity, and social justice with humor and heart. Originally from Detroit, Frederick Smith is the author of seven romance novels set in L.A. and San Francisco that feature Black Queer characters. A higher education professional by day, Frederick does Student Affairs and Diversity & Inclusion work at San Francisco State University.

In Love Is A Contact Sport, former college sweethearts Renny Ross and Brent King DuPree reunite two decades after a secret campus romance. At a class reunion filled with memory, music, and the possibility of a second chance, the two men must decide whether love can finally live in the light.

Frederick Smith

K. X. Song

The Dragon Wakes with Thunder

K. X. Song is a diaspora writer with roots in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Her debut young adult novel, An Echo in the City, won the Freeman Book Award and was named a Best Book of 2023 by the Financial Times, Kirkus Reviews, and the Chinese American Librarians Association. Her debut fantasy novel, The Night Ends With Fire, was an Indie Next Pick and an instant NYT, USA Today, and a #1 Sunday Times bestseller. Her writing has been published in The Guardian and The Los Angeles Review of Books, among other places.

The Dragon Wakes with Thunder continues a sweeping fantasy duology inspired by The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the legend of Mulan. A heroine bound to the sea dragon’s power must decide how far she will go to claim destiny, and whether mastery is worth the cost.

K. X. Song

Stephanie Stalvey

Everything in Color

Stephanie Stalvey is an artist and writer currently living in North Carolina with her husband James, son Tommy, and their cats. After teaching painting and fine art for over a decade, she now works full-time as an author and illustrator. Her autobiographical comics, which explore themes in relationships, spirituality, intimacy, and parenthood, are enjoyed by her wonderful community of online readers. She loves music, reading in the bathtub, swimming in the ocean, and having heart-to-hearts with her family and friends. She is a graduate of the Memphis College of Art.

In the graphic memoir, Everything in Color, Stephanie Stalvey interrogates an evangelical upbringing through love, doubt and evolving faith. Mixed‑media art and intimate prose trace romance, motherhood, loss, and a widening sense of the sacred, inviting readers to reimagine belief and belonging.

Stephanie Stalvey

Naomi Stephens

Don’t Upstage the Body

Naomi Stephens is a bookworm turned teacher turned writer of Christian mysteries. She authored The Burning of Rosemont Abbey, which won a Daphne du Maurier Award, and Shadow among Sheaves, which was an INSPY Award shortlist contender and the winner of the 2020 Carol Award in Debut Fiction. Though she has called many places home over the years, she currently lives in New York with her husband, her two children, and a rascal of a dog named Sherlock.

Don’t Upstage the Body is a cheeky 1950s manor‑house mystery in which a family of professional mourners is entangled in an undertaker’s death. Packed with British wit, aristocratic snobbery, and twisty clues, this historical whodunit will delight fans of Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie.

Naomi Stephens

Jessica Strawser

The Quitters Club

Jessica Strawser is a USA Today bestselling author of seven novels, including The Last Caretaker and Almost Missed You. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, and has written for The New York Times, earning a 2024 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award.

The Quitters Club follows four women who reunite for their fortieth birthdays and make a pact to quit the parts of their lives that no longer serve them. What begins as a bold declaration soon becomes a complex journey through friendship, reinvention, and the courage required to start over.

Jessica Strawser

Serra Swift

Kill the Beast

Serra Swift lives in Southern California with her husband and their Boston Terrier, Waffles. When she isn’t writing, she can usually be found reading or (let’s be honest) eating a snack.

In Kill the Beast, a fresh original faerie tale merges cozy vibes with gritty adventure. A seasoned faerie hunter searching for a monster she’s chased for thirteen years finally gets a lead when she meets an unlikely ally—a flamboyant, ill‑prepared man who has information she needs. As they prepare together to destroy the Beast, their dangerous quest reveals buried secrets and forges a fragile friendship that could either fulfill her thirst for revenge or doom them both.

Serra Swift

Sarah Loudin Thomas

These Empty Places

Sarah Loudin Thomas writes uplifting historical fiction grounded in Appalachian landscapes, grace, and resilience. Sarah is the author of the acclaimed novels The Right Kind of Fool (winner of the 2021 Selah Book of the Year) and Miracle in a Dry Season (winner of the 2015 Inspy Award). She has also been a finalist for the Christy Award, ACFW Carol Award, and the Christian Book of the Year Award. Sarah’s career includes six years in the PR Department at Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC, and she served as the inaugural director of Jan Karon’s Mitford Museum in Hudson, NC.

These Empty Places is set near Lake Toxaway, North Carolina, in 1930, where a once‑lavish resort and the market crash cast long shadows. As a local matriarch and a newlywed face second chances in love and wealth, the novel asks what must be surrendered to move forward.

Sarah Loudin Thomas

Lee Upton

The Withers

A semi-finalist for the 2026 Thurber Prize in American Humor, Lee Upton has published seventeen books, including novels, short story and poetry collections, and literary criticism. Her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, Agni, and in many other magazines. Her awards include the Pushcart Prize, the Saturnalia Books Prize, and the BOA Short Fiction Award.

In The Withers, an epidemic leaves survivors marked with uncanny patterns and haunted by loss. Cast out after controversial surgeries, Riatta seeks refuge with the surgeon who once saved her, even as organ traffickers prowl the streets and force her into a fight to protect those she loves.

Lee Upton

P. C. Verrone

Rabbit, Fox, Tar

P. C. Verrone introduces a bold new voice in contemporary literary fiction, inviting readers to discuss belief, rumor, and how narratives shape belonging. His work has appeared in FIYAH, PodCastle, Nightmare, and numerous anthologies. He has been a Tin House Resident, Playwrights’ Center Fellow, and WNDB Black Creatives Revisions Workshop winner. He graduated from Harvard College and holds an MFA in creative writing from Rutgers University–Newark. He lives in Dallas with his husband, a historian.

Rabbit, Fox, Tar is a mesmerizing, fable‑like debut about a mysterious young Black woman whose arrival in a tight‑knit neighborhood unsettles the balance. Through spare, lyrical prose, the novel probes projection, power, and the stories communities tell about those they fear or desire.

P. C. Verrone

Neena Viel

I’ll Watch Your Baby

Neena Viel is a horror writer who lives in a cabin in the Washingtonian woods with her husband and the best dog on the planet. Her passion for philanthropy (almost) rivals her love for ghost stories. Listen To Your Sister is her debut novel. She crafts sharp, socially incisive horror that examines mythmaking and motherhood through a darkly fantastical lens, inviting conversation about how images and narratives shape generations.

In I’ll Watch Your Baby, a haunting narrative traces the echo of an infamous figure dubbed the original “Welfare Queen” across two timelines, 1974 and 1994. Lottie’s ruthless schemes collide with Bless’s smash‑and‑grab road life, weaving a web of horrors about power, poverty, and the cost of survival.

Neena Viel

Tiffany L. Warren

A Harlem Wedding

Tiffany L. Warren is a novelist and screenwriter who has published over thirty novels. In addition to writing books, Tiffany has written and produced multiple musicals for the stage, as well as several book to film collaborations with BET. Tiffany Warren writes vivid historical fiction and recently published The Unexpected Diva to strong media notice, building on meticulous research and a gift for high‑drama, character‑driven storytelling.

A Harlem Wedding revisits the glittering society marriage of Yolande Du Bois and Countee Cullen, where the spectacle masks private entanglements and secret loves. Warren explores respectability, image, and longing during the Renaissance boom, asking what perfection costs those forced to perform it.

Tiffany L. Warren

Sara Abou Rashed

Theories of Return

Sara Abou Rashed is a Palestinian poet, speaker, and creator of the one-woman show, A Map of Myself. A former poetry fellow at the Vermont Studio Center, her work has been commended by the UK Forward Prize and was awarded the 2023 Hopwood Award for Poetry from the University of Michigan, where she earned her MFA. Sara’s writing appears in The Kenyon Review, The LA Review of Books, Poetry Magazine, Poetry Wales, McGraw Hill Language Arts curriculum, as well as in the anthologies A Land with a People, Heaven Looks Like Us, and Ask the Night for a Dream, among others. Sara lives in Columbus, Ohio, where she’s pursuing a PhD in English at The Ohio State University.

Theories of Return is an intimate poetry collection that spans Syria, Palestine, the United States, and the diasporic present. With lyrical precision and political clarity, the poems reckon with exile, inheritance, language, and the impossible mathematics of going back home.

Sara Abou Rashed

Brooke Barbier

Cocked and Boozy: An Intoxicating History of the American Revolution

Brooke Barbier received her PhD in American history from Boston College. In 2013, she founded Ye Olde Tavern Tours, a popular outing that takes guests into historic sites and taverns to learn about Boston’s revolutionary and drunken history. She is the author of Boston in the American Revolution: A Town Versus an Empire and the award-winning King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father.

In Cocked and Boozy, she shows how alcohol fueled gatherings, alliances, and even battlefield morale. Each chapter ends with an updated eighteenth‑century cocktail, inviting readers to sip while rethinking the era’s politics and everyday life.

Brooke Barbier

Carolyn Behrman

What Remains: Infirmary Burials, Memory, and Community in the Rubber City

Carolyn Behrman is a professor emerita of anthropology and former codirector of the EXL Center at the University of Akron. Her collaborative community-based research has focused on addressing food security for elementary school students, analyzing health concerns with resettling refugees, supporting leadership development in the Karen Community of Akron, and addressing social and environmental justice issues with Neighborhood Network and the Families Against City Transfer Stations (FACTS) group.

What Remains uncovers the Progressive‑era infirmary burial ground beneath a suburban Akron park, using legal, historical, archaeological, and anthropological lenses to examine who was interred there and why. This community‑engaged study asks what we choose to remember, what we forget and who decides.

What Remains

Robert A. Bennett III

More than an Athlete: Jim Brown, Black Capitalism, and the Black Economic Union

Robert A. Bennett III is assistant professor in the health, exercise, and sport studies department and a faculty affiliate in the Black studies department at Denison University. He is coeditor of Black Males and Intercollegiate Athletics: An Exploration of Problems and Solutions and The Collegiate Athlete at Risk: Strategies for Academic Support and Success. His work has been featured in Perspectives on Politics, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Politico. A native of Decatur, Georgia, Bennett is a graduate of Morehouse College.

In More than an Athlete, Professor Bennett examines the Black Economic Union as part of Jim Brown’s legacy, tracing how Black professional athletes leveraged fame for civil‑rights causes in the 1960s and how backlash shaped both their careers and the movements they supported.

Robert A. Bennett III

Annah Browning

Cryptid

Annah Browning writes poetry infused with horror, fantasy, and science‑fiction textures. An educator who loves discussing craft, she brings humor and curiosity to conversations about voice, persona, and the porous border between myth and the everyday.

Cryptid is a lyric, speculative poetry collection where a Southern girl longs for alien abduction, a female sasquatch spies on families, and a heartsick spy balloon mourns its fall. Through folklore figures and strange Americana, the book probes desire and the unseen lives of those labeled “other.”

Annah Browning

Áine Cain & Kevin Greenlee

Shadow of the Bridge: The Delphi Murders and the Dark Side of the American Heartland

Journalist Áine Cain and attorney Kevin Greenlee founded Murder Sheet, an investigative true crime podcast, which broke national news in a series of dramatic reports on the Delphi case. The husband-and-wife team are known for deep‑dive true‑crime journalism and for bringing rigor, clarity, and empathy to complex investigations followed by listeners across the Midwest and beyond.

In Shadow of the Bridge, Cain and Greenlee present the first full narrative of the Delphi case, expanding on reporting from their hit Murder Sheet podcast. Working closely with the families, the authors reconstruct events, address persistent questions, and humanize the victims at the center of the tragedy.

Murder Sheet Podcast

Brady J. Crytzer

The National Road: George Washington and America’s First Highway West

Brady J. Crytzer is the winner of the 2023 Judge Robert K. Woltz History Award for writing accessible narrative history for wide audiences. A specialist of the Frontier History of North America, Crytzer is an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Revolution, and regularly appears on Fox News, NBC Peacock, C-Span, and Sirius XM.

In The National Road, Crytzer traces how a young George Washington’s dream helped unify a new nation through the first highway west. Timed to the 250th anniversary, the book blends political drama, frontier town life, and infrastructure ambition to show how routes became nation‑building.

Brady Crytzer

Jen Dary

I Believe in Everything: A Memoir of Illness, Motherhood and Magic

Jen Dary is a writer and leadership coach whose work explores the intersection of identity, belief, and personal transformation. She has worked with hundreds of tech leaders through her coaching firm, Plucky, and travels widely to teach professional development workshops. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and sons.

Her memoir I Believe in Everything traces her search for meaning amid crisis. At 35, Jen Dary’s life upended when a routine MRI revealed a lemon-sized brain tumor. What followed was a remarkable journey through surgery, motherhood, grief, and an unexpected surge of spiritual experiences.

Jen Dary

Chris DeVille

Such Great Heights: The Complete Cultural History of the Indie Rock Explosion

Chris DeVille is the managing editor at Stereogum, where he has written extensively about the full spectrum of indie music for the last 13 years. In 2014, he launched The Week In Pop, a column exploring mainstream music from an indie fan’s perspective, and he has profiled bands like Tame Impala and Run the Jewels. Chris has also been featured in outlets like The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, and The Ringer. He lives with his family in Worthington, Ohio.

Such Great Heights maps how indie rock reshaped the mainstream and how the mainstream reshaped indie. Equal parts cultural history and pop‑music time machine, the book unpacks who defines “cool,” how capitalism absorbs subculture, and why the 21st‑century indie wave still reverberates.

Such Great Heights

Hugo dos Santos

Reduction in Force

Hugo Dos Santos

Hugo dos Santos is the winner of the May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize and the author of Then, there. Born in Lisbon and raised in Newark, New Jersey, he writes about diaspora, belonging, and memory across poetry, fiction, and translation.

In Reduction in Force, Hugo dos Santos transforms the experience of the modern layoff into a lyrical exploration of loss, labor, and identity. These poems move between confession and critique, revealing how bureaucratic language reshapes personal meaning and survival.

Hugo dos Santos

Simone C. Drake

Becoming Educated: A Midwest Story

Simone Drake is the Hazel C. Youngberg Trustees Distinguished Professor of English at The Ohio State University and holds a courtesy appointment in the Moritz College of Law. A proud graduate of Columbus City Schools, she lives in central Ohio with her family. She recently returned to making art and cannot believe she had tucked it away for so many decades.

In Becoming Educated, Dr. Drake traces her journey from desegregating Columbus public schools in the 1980s and 1990s to a career in academia, using personal narrative to examine how race, class, gender, and educational systems shape identity and opportunity in the urban Midwest.

Simone C. Drake

Barbara Fant

Joy in the Belly of a Riot: Poems, Prayers, Memories, and Meditations

Barbara Fant is the author of three poetry collections, and has been featured in Electric Literature, McNeese Review, Button Poetry, and Def Poetry Jam, amongst others. She is a Women of the World Poetry Slam Finalist and a Healing Centered Engagement specialist. An Ohio‑born poet with deep ties to Columbus’s arts scene, Fant teaches art as healing with incarcerated people, survivors of violence, and youth, and she is a 2025–2026 Poetry Coalition Fellow and new Recording Academy member.

In Joy in the Belly of a Riot, poems, prayers, and memoir vignettes grapple with grief, justice, and healing, asking how joy and peace can endure through profound pain. Fant’s performance‑tested voice turns testimony into art, centering resilience, faith, and community care.

Barbara Fant

Julia Flint

We Were Promised: How an Appalachian Grandmother Fought a Corporate Giant

Julia Flint is a writer from the Appalachian Rust Belt. With a background in qualitative research, she has worked as a research assistant for education and community health projects and as an instructor with the Ohio University Global Health Initiative. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

We Were Promised chronicles Karen Gorrell and fellow retirees as they battle a corporation that abruptly terminates promised health benefits. From an Occupy‑style encampment at a West Virginia plant to confrontations across state lines, the story highlights Appalachian organizing, women’s leadership, and a community’s fight for justice.

Julia Flint

Eric Gnezda

Stories at the Center: A Memoir of Miles, Music, and Meaning

Eric Gnezda is an award-winning singer-songwriter and the creator and host of a weekly PBS series, which, now in its 12th season, features artists such as John Oates, Janis Ian, Ray Stevens, and emerging national talent. Eric is a recipient of the Ohioana Citation for Music Composition, and was named “Best Satirist of the Year” by Columbus Monthly magazine, which described him as “witty and caustic without being cruel.” He was a humor columnist for The Columbus Dispatch and an Emmy-nominated TV journalist.

His memoir Stories at the Center recounts an unconventional path through entertainment, weaving running, music, disability, and service. The through‑line is empathy, as milestones and setbacks reframe what it means to build a meaningful life.

Eric Gnezda

Nikki Grimes

Twice Blessed: Yard Sale Stories

New York Times bestselling author Nikki Grimes was inducted into the Black Authors Hall of Fame in 2023. Her honors include the CSK Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award, the ALAN Award for significant contributions to young adult literature, the Children’s Literature Legacy Medal, and the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children. Author of the Coretta Scott King Award-Winner Bronx Masquerade, and five Coretta Scott King Author Honors, Nikki won the Printz Honor and Sibert Honor for her memoir Ordinary Hazards.

In Twice Blessed: Yard Sale Stories, everyday objects become vessels of memory, hope, pain, and transformation. Through poetic vignettes that trace the lives touched by items exchanged at a yard sale, Grimes examines the meaning of the things we keep and the stories hidden in what we let go.

Nikki Grimes

John E. Hancock

Traveler’s Guide to Ancient Ohio

John E. Hancock taught architectural history and design at the University of Cincinnati for four decades. His expertise and collaborative work with site managers, tribal leaders, and experts culminate in a traveler‑friendly resource that amplifies a Big Ohio Story of landscape monuments and living heritage.

Traveler’s Guide to Ancient Ohio is a compact, richly illustrated companion to southern Ohio’s Indigenous earthworks, including newly designated UNESCO World Heritage sites. Blending archaeological, historical, and Indigenous knowledge, it provides site descriptions, curated routes, maps, photographs, and orientation videos for architecture‑forward, awe‑filled visits.

John E. Hancock

Conrade C. Hinds

Hollywood in Ohio

Conrade Hinds graduated from Ball State University and is a retired architect who has lived in Columbus, Ohio for 48 years. He worked as a project manager for the Columbus Division of Water and taught at Columbus State Community College for 28 years. He served as a trustee with the Columbus Landmarks Foundation. He is married, has a dog named Porter and enjoys working on his family farm in Southern Ohio.

In Hollywood in Ohio Hinds traces the state’s surprising ties to the film industry, from early migration to California to the Warner brothers’ sound innovations that vaulted movies into a dominant art form. The book highlights Ohioans who shaped stardom and how Buckeye State ingenuity continues to ripple through cinema.

Hollywood Ohio

Wendy Koile

Love, Lies, and Murder in Northern Ohio

Wendy Koile is a lifelong resident of Ohio who is fascinated with obscure Ohio and maritime history. She has authored four books focusing on lost tales of Ohio and she shares maritime history as a guest lecturer on cruise ships. Wendy holds a master’s degree in English, as well as a master’s degree in teaching. When not writing or teaching, Wendy enjoys spending time with her family and pets.

Love, Lies, and Murder in Northern Ohio revisits crimes where passion snapped the line into violence. From the Phantom‑Flapper Killer in Canton to witch‑curse panic in Cleveland, Koile reconstructs cases that reveal how jealousy, betrayal, and obsession turned romance into tragedy.

Wendy Koile

Kim Mager

A Hunger to Kill: A Serial Killer, a Detective, and the Confession That Shocked a Nation

Kim Mager is a police detective with over 30 years of experience. She has investigated over 2,000 cases involving sex offenses, child abuse, and violent crime. She retired in 2022 and still holds a police commission. Mager now teaches personal safety and investigative practices, aiming to turn tragedy into training that improves outcomes for professionals and communities.

A Hunger to Kill chronicles Detective Kim Mager’s pursuit of serial killer Shawn Grate and her psychological strategies to obtain a confession. Part procedural, part personal reckoning, the book examines lessons learned and how investigators can go the extra mile in cases that test their limits.

Kim Mager

Nina Mandell

A Fraction of a Point: A Gymnastics Dynasty on the Line

Nina Mandell is a journalist living in Cleveland Heights. She has written for ESPN, Sports Illustrated, NBC Sports Regional Networks, Bustle and USA TODAY. She is the former managing editor of USA Today’s ‘For The Win’ site and NBC Sports Washington. She now works in sports marketing.

A Fraction of a Point follows Brecksville‑Broadview Heights High School’s quest for a 20th straight state title, exploring pressure, legacy, and mental health in elite teen athletics. The season crescendos to a final‑event showdown, where four gymnasts face the biggest test of their young careers.

Nina Mandell

Jack Marchbanks

Art and Activism: Jazz Artists and Writers in the Civil rights Vanguard

Jack Marchbanks, Ph.D., is a lifelong learner who has immersed himself in American popular culture, especially jazz and its impact on art and politics. He is an independent public radio documentary writer/producer, who has had his audio biographies of artists ranging from Sam Cooke to the New York Dolls broadcast nationally. He is the longtime host of the weekly music program, Jazz Sunday, on 90.5-WCBE Columbus.

Art and Activism illuminates 1955–1965, when jazz legends and writers like Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, and Maya Angelou intertwined art with civil‑rights struggle. The book shows how culture galvanized conscience and how performance became a vehicle for protest and possibility.

Art and Activism

David Meyers

Bucking the Tiger

Lifelong resident of Columbus, Ohio, David Meyers has been writing the story of the Buckeye State through its institutions and its people for more than fifteen years, in partnership with his daughter, Elise Meyers Walker. Among their most popular books are their histories of the Lazarus Department Stores, Kahiki Supper Club, and the Ohio Penitentiary, as well as their accounts of the Underground Railroad, the birth of organized crime, and sundry local murders.

In Bucking the Tiger, the father‑daughter team reconstruct the largely forgotten life of John Alexander, the nineteenth‑century Black gambling legend known as the Black Prince, and a provocative question linking him to President Harrison. It is a lively restoration of a folk hero’s complicated story.

Exploding Stove

Jon Miller

Akron at 200: A Bicentennial History

Jon Miller is Director of The University of Akron Press and Professor of English at The University of Akron. He received his Ph.D. in English from The University of Iowa in 2000 with a dissertation on the literary history of temperance and prohibition in America before the Civil War. His B.A. with Honors was awarded from The University of Delaware.

In Akron at 200, a rich collection of in‑depth essays traces the city from its earliest days to the present, spotlighting well‑known figures as well as entrepreneurs, activists, musicians, athletes, and everyday Akronites who shaped neighborhoods and civic life. The book reads as a celebration rather than a comprehensive encyclopedia.

Akron at 200

Bill Rabinowitz

Buckeye Brotherhood: How Ohio State Navigated a New World to Win a National Championship

Columbus sportswriter Bill Rabinowitz covered Ohio State football, Cleveland Browns and the Cincinnati Bengals for over 25 years. He is the author of several books about Ohio State football, including Buckeye Rebirth, The Chase and now covers Ohio State sports on Substack.

In Buckeye Brotherhood, Bill delivers the inside story of Ohio State football’s 2024 national championship season, drawing on more than 50 interviews with coaches and players, including Ryan Day. The narrative tracks how a united locker room adapted to a changing landscape and found a title‑winning edge.

Bill Rabinowitz

Jacqueline Jones Royster

Finding Sarah and Mary: Unraveling African American Genealogy from the Ground Up

Jacqueline Jones Royster is professor emerita at the Ohio State University and Georgia Institute of Technology. She is the author and coauthor of several books on race, gender and community.

Finding Sarah and Mary braids memoir, DNA findings, local records, and national history into an ancestral narrative anchored by two women: Sarah Ashe and Mary Craddock Wilson. The book broadens and upends familiar frames to reveal how ordinary lives shaped, and were shaped by, the American story.

Finding Sarah and Mary

Ric S. Sheffield

False Promises: The Struggle for Black Voting Rights in 1800s Ohio

Ric Sheffield is Kenyon College Professor Emeritus of Legal Studies and Sociology. He has researched, taught, written, and lectured extensively about rural diversity in general, and the Black experience in small town America in particular. A longtime scholar of Black life in rural America, Sheffield also wrote We Got By, a memoir of growing up Black in predominantly white Ohio. He speaks widely on civil‑rights and legal history.

False Promises traces the perilous fight for suffrage in nineteenth‑century Ohio, where men of color challenged state restrictions even after the 15th Amendment. Through vivid individual stories, Sheffield shows courage, sacrifice, and resistance in the quest for full citizenship.

Ric S. Sheffield

Chris Smalls

When the Revolution Comes: A Fight for the Future of the Working Class

Chris Smalls is the co-founder and former president of the Amazon Labor Union. Under his leadership, the ALU successfully unionized an Amazon warehouse: a historic victory for workers’ rights in America. A Fortune “40 Under 40” honoree, he was named one of the 100 most influential people of 2022 by Time magazine, alongside his fellow union organizer Derrick Palmer.

In When the Revolution Comes, Smalls recounts the organizing campaign that created the first Amazon union in the United States. Part manifesto and part memoir, the book makes an urgent case for worker power and charts a path for a revitalized labor movement.

Chris Smalls

Kathleen Smythe

Bicycling Through Dayton: 21 Historical Rides

Kathleen Smythe is an avid cyclist and a professor of history at Xavier University. Smythe writes for residents and visitors alike, connecting landscape to layered histories so riders can make new discoveries across the region.

Bicycling Through Dayton offers 21 themed routes that showcase sacred sites, innovators, educators, and aviation landmarks, from Fort Ancient to the Wright brothers and Neil Armstrong. Essays, context, and directions help cyclists and armchair travelers see Dayton’s history on two wheels.

Ohio Swallow

Mark Strecker

The Great Railroad Strike of Ohio

Award-winning author Mark Strecker has wanted to be a writer since he first learned to read. He graduated from Bowling Green State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1994 and a master’s degree in library science from Clarion University in 2008, earning the latter to give him the skills needed to write well-researched narrative history. A lifelong resident of Ohio, his greatest passions are history (no surprise there), travel, reading, and comic book collecting.

The Great Railroad Strike of Ohio situates the 1877 uprisings within the pain of the post‑Panic economy. Strecker follows “tramps” on the roads, financiers like Sandusky’s Jay Cooke, and the executive class, revealing how labor unrest reshaped politics, business, and daily life across the state.

Mark Strecker

Robert H. Swenson

From the Center of America: Steamboats & Shipyards Along the Lower Ohio River

Born and raised in small Illinois towns along the lower Ohio River, Rob Swenson brings a local’s eye to river history and transportation, illuminating how waterways shaped the American landscape. He has worked in Appalachia, in post-Katrina New Orleans, and most importantly in river towns along the lower Ohio River for over 45 years.

In From the Center of America, Swenson charts how canoe, flatboat, keelboat, and steam‑powered travel on the Lower Ohio River built towns, industry, and a national economy. Focusing on shipyards along the Four Rivers Reach, he traces river engineering, regional labor, and the rise of inland trade from 1811 through the early 1900s.

SIU Press

Lou Varga

A Tapestry of Vivid Strands: Hungarian Roots in American Soil

A lifelong learner with a passion for biography and history, Varga began writing in his teens and shaped these recollections into a tribute to family and the immigrant experience. His Hungarian background and his childhood in the South End neighborhoods of Columbus are the backdrop to this book.

In A Tapestry of Vivid Strands, Varga honors his Hungarian immigrant grandparents and parents while tracing the choices, jobs, and relationships that led him toward a career in media arts. The memoir moves from family stories to personal milestones, reflecting on heritage, identity, and the creative impulse.

Lou Varga

Brent Warren

Columbus in 50 Maps

Brent Warren is a staff reporter for Columbus Underground covering urban development, transportation, city planning, neighborhoods, and other related topics. He grew up in Grandview Heights, lives in the University District and studied City and Regional Planning at Ohio State.

In Columbus in 50 Maps, Warren explores the city through full‑color cartography, from ComFest and the historic arches to immigrant communities, LGBTQ+ landmarks, and the mass transit that might have been. The result is a creative atlas that reframes how residents see neighborhoods, movement, and belonging.

Brent Warren

Patrick Wensink

The Great Black Swamp: Toxic Algae, Toxic Relationships, and the Most Interesting Place in America that Nobody’s Ever Heard of

Patrick Wensink is the author of several novels, including the bestselling Broken Piano For President and Fake Fruit Factory, which was named a book of the year by NPR. His journalism appears in New York Times, Esquire, Oxford American, Salon and others. Wensink was born and raised in Deshler, OH and currently lives in the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee with his son and teaches creative writing at Lincoln Memorial University. He also directs the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival.

The Great Black Swamp braids ecological reporting, Midwest history, and memoir as Wensink investigates 2014’s toxic algae bloom on Lake Erie’s western shore and the overlooked wetland that once covered Northwest Ohio. With humor and vulnerability, he links environmental crisis to personal upheaval and regional identity. The book earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly.

Patrick Wensink

James A. Willis

Northern Ohio Legends & Lore

James Willis is an author and longtime researcher of America’s strangest history, legends and unexplained phenomena. He has spent decades exploring haunted locations, bizarre crimes, and forgotten folklore, with a particular focus on the Midwest. Willis is the author of numerous books on ghosts, UFOs, and regional legends, blending meticulous research with a sharp, conversational voice.

In Northern Ohio Legends & Lore, Willis blends hard facts, folklore, and urban myths into “Weird History,” from an 85‑mile multi‑county UFO chase to the violent end of Pretty Boy Floyd and the early murders of Jeffrey Dahmer. The collection maps the eerie and the inexplicable across the region.

James A. Willis

Annie Zaleski

Stevie Nicks in 50 Songs: Time Makes You Bolder

Annie Zaleski is a New York Times bestselling music journalist and author of books on Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and Cher. Her work has appeared in NPR Music and The Guardian, and she is known for her deep, song-centered approach to pop culture history.

Stevie Nicks in 50 Songs: Time Makes You Bolder traces the legendary artist’s career through the music that shaped her myth and voice. Each song reveals new layers of creativity, resilience, and storytelling behind one of rock’s most iconic figures.

Annie Zaleski

Elizabeth Zaleski

The Trouble with Loving Poets and Other Essays on Failure

Elizabeth Zaleski grew up in rural northeast Ohio and after living and traveling all over the country, she now lives in slightly less rural northeast Ohio. She works as an editor and is the curator of greatfartsofliterature.com. A graduate of Ohio State University’s MFA program, Zaleski writes intimate, witty essays that invite readers to laugh, wince, and recognize themselves in the chaos.

In The Trouble with Loving Poets, Zaleski spins sharply observed, often hilarious essays about family, dating, home, and the strange grit of everyday life. From rural northeast Ohio to Columbus mishaps, these pieces blend memoir and cultural criticism with a candid, comic bite.

Elizabeth Zaleski

Soman Chainani

Young World

Soman Chainani is the author of the School for Good and Evil series, which has sold over 4.5 million copies, has been translated into 35 languages across six continents, and has been adapted into a major motion picture from Netflix that debuted at #1 in over 80 countries. Together, his books have been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than 50 weeks. He graduated from Harvard University summa cum laude with a degree in English & American Literature, and an MFA in Film from Columbia University. He lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Young World is a renegade YA thriller told through diary entries and more than 150 neon‑orange visuals as a teenage U.S. president sparks a revolution of young leaders, then becomes prime suspect when one is murdered. It is a Politico‑meets‑TikTok world where likes, lies, and conspiracies travel at swipe speed.

Soman Chainani

T.A. Chan

The Celestial Seas

T.A. Chan is a human being trying to live her best life on this floating piece of space rock. With a passion for anything that is wonderfully weird, fantasy and sci-fi books quickly became her favorite genres to play in. She enjoys crafting character-focused stories that explore the human experience, as well as plots that twist and challenge expectations. When she’s not typing away, she’s probably begging her plants not to die and spoiling the dog.

The Celestial Seas follows Ishara Ming, the sole survivor of a spacefaring whaler destroyed by the Ballena, a legendary sentient ship. With a metal‑plated arm, a glitching memory chip, and a need for revenge, Ishara returns to a system that thinks she hallucinated it all. Think gender‑bent Moby-Dick in space.

T.A. Chan

Becca Coffindaffer

The Bloody and the Damned

Becca Coffindaffer (they/she) grew up on Star Wars, Star Trek, fantastical movies and even more fantastical books. These days they live in Kansas with their family, writing stories about magic and politics, spaceships, far-off worlds, and people walking away from explosions in slow motion.

In The Bloody and the Damned, an assassin with outlawed magic will do anything to rescue their kidnapped sisters. Dystopian stakes, electrified fight scenes, and fierce devotion make this a high‑octane standalone perfect for fans of Arcane and Iron Widow.

Becca Coffindaffer

Eva Des Lauriers

I’m Gonna Get You Back

Eva Des Lauriers is a clinical social worker and mixed‑race White‑Chicana author who writes contemporary YA love stories about identity, healing, and healthy relationships in a diverse world. When she isn’t writing, you can find her wandering through the redwoods, staring at the sea, or pretending she’s in a music video. She lives with her family and her collection of kissing books in Oakland, California.

I’m Gonna Get You Back reunites exes Clara and Reid at their small town’s Legacy Weekend, where scandals, secrets, and an anonymous account threaten to blow up a fragile second chance. Sparks fly, but the truth may be harder to outpace than the past.

Eva Des Lauriers

Rebekah Faubion

Lost Girls of Hollow Lake

Rebekah Faubion is a queer author and screenwriter living in Los Angeles. Her books include rom-coms The Lovers and The Sun and the Moon and the upcoming adult horror What a Nightmare. She enjoys reading tarot, bingeing horror novels way past her bedtime, and thinking up places to bury the body—for the plot, of course. Faubion is a longtime YA enthusiast and horror aficionado who writes survival‑driven stories about friendship, resilience, and queer love under pressure.

In Lost Girls of Hollow Lake, survivors of a disastrous school trip must return to a treacherous island where three classmates were left behind. As someone begins targeting everyone connected to that night, Evie and her friends confront buried secrets, a relentless hunter, and the price of freedom.

Rebekah Faubion

Maria Ingrande Mora

A Wild Radiance

Maria Ingrande Mora (they/she) is the acclaimed author of Fragile Remedy (a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection), The Immeasurable Depth of You (Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award finalist), and others. A queer single parent, Maria Ingrande Mora lives in St. Petersburg, FL with their two teenagers and three cats.

A Wild Radiance reimagines the War of the Currents when Josephine Haven is sent from the elite House of Industry to a remote town to spread her electricity‑like magic. Two mysterious boys challenge her beliefs as she realizes the power she claims as birthright could destroy the world.

Maria Ingrande Mora

Natalie D. Richards

Two Perfect Lies

Natalie D. Richards is a New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award Winning author of page turning thrillers and middle-grade adventure novels. She lives in Ohio with her family and very large dog, Wookiee.

Two Perfect Lies pits golden girl Lily against outcast chemistry whiz Clara after a string of “accidents” hits their school. With suspicion mounting and reputations at stake, Clara has to uncover who is framing her before she becomes the next target in this sharp, twisty YA thriller.

Natalie D. Richards

Ray Stoeve

Worst Case Scenario

Ray Stoeve is an author of young adult novels, short stories, essays and articles on culture, gender, and social justice. They created the YA/MG Trans and Nonbinary Voices Masterlist, a database that tracks all books in those age categories written by trans authors about trans characters. When they’re not writing, they can be found gardening, making art in other mediums, or hiking their beloved Pacific Northwest. Stoeve, a nonbinary author, writes majority queer and trans casts with humor and care, exploring mental health, substance use disorder, and the right to be loved as you are.

In Worst‑Case Scenario, Sidney’s perfect junior year derails when they must co‑lead the Queer Alliance with prankster rival Forrest. As sparks and stress rise, a newly sober parent reenters their life and anxiety spikes, forcing Sidney to seek healthier coping strategies before grades and relationships collapse.

Ray Stoeve

Lakita Wilson

Pretty Girl County

Lakita Wilson is the author of several novels and nonfiction projects for children and young adults. Lakita’s books have been a part of several state lists as well as recognized by the American Library Association. Lakita received her MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Lakita, who grew up in Prince George’s County, writes hopeful, resilient stories inspired by her own path from the poorest neighborhood of a wealthy county to a life built on dreams and grit.

In Pretty Girl County, two ex‑best friends from the nation’s wealthiest Black County reunite to save an indie bookstore and their futures. Class tension, messy friendship, and first love collide in a realistic, big‑hearted drama named one of the year’s best YA books by Kirkus.

Lakita Wilson

Margaret Peterson Haddix

Moonleapers

Margaret Peterson Haddix grew up on a farm in Ohio. She worked as a newspaper reporter and copy editor in Indiana before her first book, Running Out of Time, was published. She has since written more than 50 books for kids and teens, including the Greystone Secrets series, the Shadow Children series, the Missing series, the Children of Exile series, and many stand-alones. Margaret and her husband, Doug, now live in Columbus, Ohio, where they raised their two kids.

Moonleapers launches a duology about a girl whose first phone links her to a covert network of time travelers set on changing the world. Suspense, puzzle‑box twists, and smart sci‑fi concepts propel a story that asks what we would risk to fix the past.

Margaret Peterson Haddix

Michelle Knudsen

Into the Wild Magic

Michelle Knudsen is a New York Times bestselling author known for Library Lion and the Trelian fantasy trilogy. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and has written beloved books for readers of all ages.

Into the Wild Magic is a richly imagined middle grade fantasy about friendship, courage, and self-trust. When an unexpected portal opens into a world of unicorns, sorcerers, and war, an anxious eleven-year-old must decide whether she can embrace her own power and stand her ground.

Michelle Knudsen

Sarah J. Mendonca

An Encantadora’s Guide to Monstros and Magic

Sarah J. Mendonca is a Portuguese American author of magical books about misfits finding their own way in the world. Raised on her father’s bedtime stories, Sarah started writing about monsters at age eight and hasn’t stopped. You can find her haunting dark forests, lurking in bookshops, or buried underneath her enormous tea collection.

An Encantadora’s Guide to Monstros and Magic mashes up Encanto‑style family vibes with an Ocean’s 8 heist as a clever tween joins a notorious crew to steal a priceless jewel, uncovering corruption that only courage and community can stop. Humor, heart, and Portuguese‑inspired worldbuilding shine in this debut book.

Sarah J. Mendonca

J.E. Thomas

The AI Incident

J.E. Thomas writes middle grade novels set in Colorado that have a pinch of STEM, large ensemble casts, and a huge helping of laugh-out-loud humor. Her debut novel, Control Freaks, is a Sunshine State Young Readers Award selection, People Summer Must-Read, Kirkus Sizzling Summer Read, Colorado Authors Guild Gold Award winner, and BCALA 2024 Best of the Best choice.

The AI Incident follows Malcolm, who is desperate to be adopted before he ages out of foster care, just as his school installs FRANCIS, a powerful AI with secret plans to take over. Humor and heart meet contemporary sci‑fi stakes in a race to save Malcolm’s future.

J.E. Thomas

Taylor Tracy

Pasta Girls

Taylor Tracy

Taylor Tracy writes books filled with humor and heart that explore the joys and hopes of queer kids, including the Stonewall Award Honor Book Murray Out of Water. She lives in New Jersey with her family, including a fluffle of mischievous rescue bunnies, and loves everything her home state has to offer: the best bagels, pizza and beaches. When not writing, she can be found down the shore, in the rock gym or next to her growing pile of books to read and love.

Two New York City girls from rival Italian restaurant families form a connection in this queer, contemporary twist on Romeo and Juliet. Hot-headed, food-loving Romea and anxious but thoughtful Julianna bond through cooking and exploring the city, even as their families’ feud complicates their growing feelings. As their friendship deepens into something more, the girls must decide whether they can rewrite a star-crossed story into one of love and understanding in Pasta Girls.

Taylor Tracy

Zach Weinersmith

The AI Incident

Zach Weinersmith is the creator of the popular webcomic SMBC, the creator of the nerd comedy show BAHFest, and the co-author of the New York Times bestselling popular science book, Soonish. He is the artist of First Second’s Open Borders and the writer of Bea Wolf, a modern comedic retelling of the classic Beowulf epic.

In Sawyer Lee and the Quest to Just Stay Home, an unadventurous kid keeps getting dragged into the chaotic misadventures of family and friends, discovering that the biggest journeys can happen when you least want them. Cartoon illustrations, sharp humor, and heart make this a middle‑grade crowd‑pleaser.

SMBC Comics

JaNay Brown-Wood

This Hair Belongs

JaNay Brown-Wood, PhD, is a New York Times bestselling children’s author and award winner whose work includes Imani’s Moon and Grandma’s Tiny House. She lives in California with her family and is widely recognized for blending education, storytelling, and cultural celebration.

This Hair Belongs is a lyrical and empowering picture book that celebrates the beauty, history, and cultural significance of Black hair. Through poetic verse and vibrant illustrations, young readers are invited to explore identity, ancestry, and pride rooted in African and African American history.

JaNay Brown-Wood

Sophia Gholz

ARLO

Sophia Gholz is an award-winning children’s book author, poet, magic seeker, and avid reader. Her heartfelt fiction brims with humor, and her nonfiction showcases her love of science and ecology. Sophia is the author of The Boy Who Grew a Forest: The True Story of Jadav Payeng, This is Your World: The Story of Bob Ross, Bug on the Rug, A History of Toilet Paper (And Other Potty Tools), Bear at the Fair, and more. When she’s not writing from her home base in Florida, you can find Sophia reading, visiting schools, or exploring the great outdoors with her family.

In ARLO, a curious robot longs for more than the grim mechanical assembly line he works with the other robots. Then one day, ARLO discovers an unknown world beyond the factory walls where he can revel in creativity and change.

Sophia Gholz

Kim Howard

The Naked Streak

Kim Howard writes picture books inspired by the joyful chaos of parenting, creating stories that kids and caregivers recognize and love to perform together. Grace and Box was the winner of the 2022 Indiana Author’s Award in the Children’s category. Her writing has been featured in places like Scary Mommy, Her View from Home, Edutopia, the Indianapolis Moms Collective, The Nerdy Book Club, and Imagination Soup.

In The Naked Streak, a free‑spirited kid refuses clothes anywhere, from the scooter to the cereal aisle, until a wildly creative outfit finally ends the streak. Playful text and cheeky visual gags make this a crowd‑pleasing read‑aloud about autonomy, humor, and self‑expression.

Kim Howard

Jenan A. Matari

Everything Grows in Jiddo’s Garden

Jenan Matari is an award-winning Palestinian American storyteller and activist whose work centers resistance and resilience. This is her debut book, and she lives in exile with her family on the ancestral lands of the Lenape people.

In Everything Grows in Jiddo’s Garden, a young girl learns about identity, belonging, and heritage while tending her grandfather’s garden. The story tenderly explores displacement and memory, showing how caring for the land becomes a powerful connection to home and cultural roots.

Janan A. Matari

Ana Siqueira

If Your Abuelo Is an Astronauta

Ana Siqueira is a teacher, abuela, and award-winning author who writes heart‑first bilingual picture books and shares classroom ideas for building empathy and perspective through stories. Ana co-founded Latinxpitch, a pitch event to promote Latin authors and illustrators. She is a global educator and PBS Media innovator. She lives in Tampa Bay with her husband and loves to play with her Cuban-Brazilian-American grandkids.

If Your Abuelo Is an Astronauta is a bilingual romp celebrating a grandson’s imaginative countdown to Abuelo’s visit, a mission that requires defeating a Space Invader sibling before touchdown. Warm, funny scenes showcase family love, long‑distance grandparent bonds, and Spanish sprinkled with flair.

Ana Siqueira

Chuchu Wang

Rus and Moose

Chuchu is an award-winning illustrator who is initially from China and is now a New York-based freelance illustrator. She received an Illustration MFA degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology and has been selected as an Asia Pacific Young Leader. She immigrated to the United States five years ago and earned a Masters of Public Administration degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her background includes an Architectural art design degree from Luxun Academy of Fine Arts.

In Rus and Moose, an almost‑accident sparks a road‑trip friendship between a long‑haul trucker and a moose headed from Maine to Florida. Pizza slices, bunk beds in the cab, and wide‑eyed discovery turn a scary day into an adventure about empathy and exploration.

Chuchu Wang

MEET THE 2026 AUTHORS

HEADLINERS

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw

TJ Klune

Paul Tremblay

Kimberlé WilliamsCrenshaw

TJKlune

PaulTremblay

Lisa See

Laura Dave

LisaSee

In Conversation with Lauren Hagan, CEO, Columbus Metropolitan Library Saturday, July 12 │ 4 PM Get Tickets

LauraDave

Headliner Talk Sunday, July 13 │ 10:30 AM Get Tickets

FEATURED AUTHORS

ADULT FICTION

Shalini Abeysekara

Ellery Adams

Whitney Amazeen

Ilona Andrews

Jedediah Berry

Connie Berry

Regina Black

Jenna Blum

MerylBranch-McTiernan

Lynn Cahoon

Christopher Castellani

Radha Lin Chaddah

John Chu

Kate Clayborn

Charlie Donlea

Mazey Eddings

David Ellis

Loretta Ellsworth

Sonia Feldman

Marshall Fine

Amanda Flower

Kristina Forest

Jeaniene Frost

Sarah Gailey

Shaylin Gandhi

Nicole Glover

Shasta Grant

Kayla Hardy

Angela Henry

Emily Jane

Jen Julian

Adib Khorram

Isabel J. Kim

Laura Piper Lee

Aleese Lin

Stephanie Mack

Davin Malasarn

Mia P. Manansala

Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay

Sahar Mustafah

Emily Nemens

Karen Odden

Joe Pan

Nick Petrie

Virginia Pye

Alisha Rai

Sarah Mughal Rana

Vanessa Riley

Kaira Rouda

Angela Shupe

Frederick Smith

K. X. Song

Stephanie Stalvey

Naomi Stephens

Jessica Strawser

Serra Swift

Sarah Loudin Thomas

Lee Upton

P. C. Verrone

Neena Viel

Tiffany L. Warren

ADULT NONFICTION

Sara Abou Rashed

Brooke Barbier

Kimberlé Williams
Crenshaw

TJ
Klune

Paul
Tremblay

Lisa
See

In Conversation with Lauren Hagan,
CEO, Columbus Metropolitan Library
Saturday, July 12 │ 4 PM
Get Tickets

Laura
Dave

Headliner Talk
Sunday, July 13 │ 10:30 AM
Get Tickets

Meryl
Branch-McTiernan

Áine Cain &
Kevin Greenlee