Morning in Ohio

Full moon visible in the west as an Ohio sunrise paints the fall foliage.

Ohio is a missed opportunity when it comes to fiction. As a physical setting for a narrative, Ohio offers unique opportunities, a mix of metropolitan centers and the most rural of counties. We have farmlands, plains, rolling hills and the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The Ohio River forms our southern border, and Lake Erie and the Great lakes separate Ohio from Canada. Who knew we had an international border? Not anyone who lives outside the state!

Ohio is in the Midwest, except that other Midwest states, like Iowa, think we are on the east coast. Columbus is the only metropolitan market in the northeast quadrant of the US that has grown consistently since the 1980s but gets no love from TV or fiction. Why do people love to set stories in Pittsburgh? Is it the one-way streets? Columbus has one-way streets. And why did they name the Steelers Stadium Three Rivers Stadium? Two rivers, the Allegheny and the Monongahela collide in Pittsburgh. Just because some yokel from Ohio convinced them to call the result the Ohio River doesn't mean there are three rivers. We have roads, here in rural Ohio, that change names when they cross township or county lines. We don't call them two roads, even if neighbors have different street names on their mailboxes. And when our rivers merge, we don't rename them or lose track of how many there are.

If you want violence and excitement, Ohio has a 'glorious' history of organized crime and mob wars. (Writer's shameless plus: read my novel Retribution about the Cleveland mob.) Did you know Eliot Ness left Chicago to move to Cleveland to pursue the mob? And failed to clean up the city? Yep, the Cleveland mob was harder to take down than Capone and the Chicago mob. (Writer's note: We live in Warren, Ohio for nine months when I was 5. According to my dad, we had two car bombings on our street in those nine months.)

Ohio has all the political intrigue and racial upheaval as any of the big cities as well. Returning to Warren, it was one of the many communities across the country, when public swimming pools were desegregated by court order that closed the public pools rather than segregate them.

The Ohio state bird is the cardinal, a glorious flash of red that flitters in and out of my life. We have a wide variety of raptors, including a growing population of bald eagles. If you have never seen a flock of wild turkeys running across a field at top speed, you have missed an incredible sight. They stretch their necks out in front of them, making them look like the Roadrunner cartoon and they can move. I'd love to see the Ohio state bird become the turkey vulture. With their distinctive bald heads and ability to soar for hours overhead, they are a constant presence in Ohio for most of the year. Remember all those images you have seen on TV of the wounded hero laying on the ground as vultures circle overhead, waiting for him to die? You can film that any day of the week in Ohio. And if you have never seen a wake of vultures strip a deer carcass to bones in a few days, you have definitely missed something special.

Take some time to write and read Ohio. A great place to start is Allan W. Eckert's The Frontiersmen which covers the early settling of Ohio. His The Dark and Bloody River is a history of conflict between America's indigenous peoples and European settlers along the Ohio river. And if you are looking for something less violet, Love: a novel of grief & desire is set in Columbus and central Ohio.

While the courts sort out SNAP payments, step up and do your part and support your local foodbank. We cannot abide cruelty.

And now, thanks to our friends at Black Rose Writing, Love: a novel of grief and desire is available to you at a discount! Save 20% on your purchase when you buy directly from the publisher. Just use the promo code SEASON20 at the link below. The discount is good through January 31, 2026.

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