Cleveland Books | Gray & Company, Publishers | Guide and Gift Books about Cleveland, Northeast Ohio, and Ohio.

Gail Ghetia Bellamy

Gail Ghetia Bellamy is a Certified Culinary Professional with a Ph.D. in creative writing. The managing editor and food editor of Restaurant Hospitality magazine, she has also written about food for many local and national magazines and for America Online's Food & Drink Network. She has lectured extensively on food trends and food writing throughout the U.S. and has contributed to several books about food, including Fodor's/Wall Street Journal Guides to Business Travel in the U.S. and Canada and Bergh's International Digest of Gastronomy, Cookery, and Wine. An accomplished poet, she is the author of the book Victual Reality: Food Poems. She is a native Clevelander.

Hometown: Cleveland Hts., OH

Restrictions: increased fee for general food topics

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Dan Coughlin

Dan Coughlin has covered the Cleveland sports scene for 45 years, as a sportswriter for The Plain Dealer (1964Ð1982) and on WJW-TV 8 (1983Ð2009). His columns also appeared in several other daily newspapers, including the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram, Medina Gazette, Lake County News-Herald, Painesville Telegraph and papers in Geneva, Ashtabula and Conneaut. He was twice named Ohio sportswriter of the year and was honored with a television Emmy. He traveled with the Browns and Indians, and covered some of the biggest college football games of the 20th century, including five major bowl games. He was at ringside for several world championship fights as well as the Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier series. He covered 17 Indianapolis 500s and several auto races in Europe. He lives in Rocky River, Ohio.

Hometown: Rocky River, OH

Restrictions: None

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Bob Dolgan

Bob Dolgan has written thousands of columns, articles, and feature stories about sports for the Plain Dealer during the past six decades. His writing has also appeared in the Sporting News, Baseball Digest, and Golf Digest. He was named one of the top 10 sports columnists in America by the Associated Press Sports Editors in 1985, and has won many other national, state, and local sportswriting awards. Since 1995, he has written frequently about sports history for the Plain Dealer, including contributions to a nationally recognized 1997 series on black baseball players and a 2001 series on the 100th anniversary of the Cleveland Indians. In 1999 he was inducted into the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame. He is also co-author of The Polka King, with Frank Yankovic. A Cleveland native and a graduate of John Carroll University, he lives in Willoughby Hills, Ohio.

Hometown: Willoughby Hills, OH

Restrictions: None

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Bob Dyer

Bob Dyer has served as a feature writer, a radio/TV writer, and a general-interest columnist for the Akron Beacon Journal since joining the paper in 1984. His stories and columns have won 22 regional and national awards. He was one of the lead writers for “A Question of Color,” a yearlong examination of racial attitudes in Akron that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994. Dyer is also co-author of Omar! My Life On and Off the Field, with Cleveland Indians baseball star Omar Vizquel. He is a graduate of West Geauga High School, near Cleveland, and The College of Wooster (Ohio). He lives with his wife and two daughters in Copley, Ohio.

Hometown: Akron, OH

Restrictions: $300 for locations outside of Summit County

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Tom Feran

Tom Feran has been a writer and editor for the Plain Dealer since 1982. He was named Best Columnist in Ohio in 2007 by the Society of Professional Journalists, and is former president of the Television Critics Association of North America. His work has appeared in publications including Ohio, Cleveland and DirecTV Magazine, and he has been a regular pseudonymous contributor to the tabloid Weekly World News. He is author with R.D. Heldenfels of Ghoulardi: Inside Cleveland TV's Wildest Ride and Cleveland TV Memories. He was co-author with John Gorman of Gorman's memoir The Buzzard: Inside the Glory Days of WMMS and Cleveland Rock Radio, and with Chuck Schodowski of the memoir Big Chuck! He is a graduate of Harvard College, where he was president and editor of the Lampoon, and of Cleveland St. Ignatius High School. He and his wife are the parents of two daughters and two sons.

Hometown: Highland Hts., OH

Restrictions: None

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John Gorman

John Gorman began his broadcasting career in Boston and in 1973 moved to Cleveland to join WMMS, a small, free-form FM station then under new ownership. Over the next thirteen years he would help turn WMMS into one of the most popular and influential rock stations in the country. He served as music director and program director, and eventually became operations manager of WMMS and WHK.

In 1986 Gorman and twelve other staff members left WMMS to start 98.5 WNCX in Cleveland. He also founded a radio consulting firm, Gorman Media, and has worked with stations in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Cleveland, and other markets.

Gorman won the Radio Consultant of the Year award at the 1985 annual Pop Music Convention and was awarded Operations Director of the Year in 1995 by Billboard magazine. He was inducted into the Ohio Radio-TV Hall of Fame in 2000 and received an Award for Excellence in Broadcasting from the Cleveland Association of Broadcasters in 2008. He lives in Bay Village, Ohio.

Hometown: Bay Village, OH

Restrictions: None

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Mary Anne Mayer

Mary Anne and her husband, Stan, reside in Medina, Ohio--a long way from Fort Greely, Alaska, where she was an army wife. Committed to the arts, Mary Anne enjoys teaching and co-directing junior high plays and musicals at St. Francis Xavier School. She and Stan have three children and delight in being grandparents.

Hometown: Medina, OH

Restrictions: None

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David Lee Morgan Jr.

David Lee Morgan, Jr. has been a sports reporter for the Akron Beacon Journal since 1995. He has won several awards for his coverage of high school sports, including the James A. Sutherland Award, given to the top “rookie” reporter in Northeast Ohio. He is a former high school and collegiate athlete.

Hometown: Akron, OH

Restrictions: None

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Terry Pluto

Terry Pluto is a sports columnist for the Plain Dealer. He has twice been honored by the Associated Press Sports Editors as the nation's top sports columnist for medium-sized newspapers. He is a nine-time winner of the Ohio Sports Writer of the Year award and has received more than 50 state and local writing awards. In 2005 he was inducted into the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame. He is the author of 23 books, including The Curse of Rocky Colavito (selected by the New York Times as one of the five notable sports books of 1989), and Loose Balls, which was ranked number 13 on Sports Illustrated's list of the top 100 sports books of all time. He was called “Perhaps the best American writer of sports books,” by the Chicago Tribune in 1997. He lives with his wife, Roberta, in Akron, Ohio.

Hometown: Akron, OH

Restrictions: None

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James Renner

James Renner is a staff writer for the alternative weekly newspaper Cleveland Scene. His film adaptation of a Stephen King story was an official selection at the 2005 Montreal World Film Festival. A graduate of Kent State University, Renner lives in Akron, Ohio. He is also author of Amy: My Search for Her Killer.

Hometown: Akron, OH

Restrictions: None

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Les Roberts

Les Roberts is the author of 14 mystery novels featuring Cleveland detective Milan Jacovich, as well as 9 other books of fiction. The past president of both the Private Eye Writers of America and the American Crime Writer's League, he came to mystery writing after a 24-year career in Hollywood. He was the first producer and head writer of the Hollywood Squares and wrote for the Andy Griffith Show, the Jackie Gleason Show, and the Man from U.N.C.L.E., among others. He has been a professional actor, a singer, a jazz musician, and a teacher. In 2003 he received the Sherwood Anderson Literary Award. A native of Chicago, he now lives in Northeast Ohio.

Hometown: Stow, OH

Restrictions: Increased fee for locations outside of Northeast Ohio

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Laura Taxel

Laura Taxel has been writing about food and the people who prepare it for 25 years. Her articles appear in local, regional, and national publications. She has won numerous Excellence In Journalism awards from The Press Club of Cleveland and the competition sponsored by the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists. In 2004, 2006, and 2008 her work was chosen for Best Food Writing, a national anthology published annually. Taxel is a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals and the Cleveland chapter of Les Dames d'Escoffier International. She still finds it hard to believe she earns a living as a professional eater.

Hometown: Cleveland Hts., OH

Restrictions: Increased fee for locations outside of Cleveland-area.

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John H. Tidyman

John Tidyman was ordered by his father to take a touch typing class the summer before high school. Tidyman often cites that incident as the reason he became a writer. After graduating from Lakewood High School, he was drafted and fought in the Vietnam War. He returned a 19-year "buck sergeant.”

Before he joined the Cleveland Press as a reporter, Tidyman worked as a waiter, a warehouseman, and an air freight agent. He is the author of eight books and has also written for almost every area publication.

Hometown: Lakewood, OH

Restrictions: None

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Vicki Blum Vigil

Vicki Blum Vigil is a historical researcher with an interest in genealogy who enjoys discovering how the past affects the present. Through her books, seminars, and tours, she also enjoys showing others how to make discoveries of their own. A retired home and school counselor for the Euclid City Schools, she lives in Highland Heights, Ohio.

Hometown: Highland Hts., OH

Restrictions: None

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Carlo Wolff

Carlo Wolff writes for numerous publications including Goldmine, Billboard.com, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Sun Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Sun Newspapers and Scene. He specializes in music criticism, book reviews, and feature articles about popular culture, travel, and business. He is also Features Editor of LH-Lodging Hospitality magazine. He lives in South Euclid, Ohio.

Hometown: South Euclid, OH

Restrictions: None

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Neil Zurcher

As a professional journalist, Neil Zurcher has worked in television, newspapers, magazines, and radio for over a half-century. He has logged more than a million miles on Ohio's roads over 25 years as a TV travel reporter. He was the original host of the "One Tank Trips" travel report, which aired on Fox8 Television in Cleveland and has since been imitated in other television markets throughout the United States. Zurcher received the Distinguished Service award from the Society of Professional Journalism and the Silver Circle award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He also received an Emmy, the Award for Excellence in Broadcasting from the Cleveland Association of Broadcasters, and has been inducted into the Cleveland Press Club Hall of Fame. He was also inducted into the Ohio Broadcasters Hall of Fame and received their "Living Legacy" award in 2007. For many years, Zurcher wrote a column for AAA Ohio Motorist magazine and now writes regularly for the Plain Dealer. He has written five books about Ohio, including Ohio Oddities and Strange Tales from Ohio.

Hometown: Bay Village, OH

Restrictions: Increased fee for locations outside of Northeast Ohio

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