About the Author
Paul
L. Gaus was born and raised in Ohio, and he has lived in Wooster, Ohio
for the past 31 years with his wife Madonna. He retired recently as
the Benjamin S. Brown Professor of Chemistry at The College of Wooster,
and Chairperson of the Chemistry Department. He was educated at Miami
University (B.S.) and Duke University (Ph.D.), and he has held positions
as Visiting Professor at the University of Illinois, Texas A&M University,
University of Wisconsin, Madison, and The Ohio State University. He
taught chemistry at the freshman, junior, and senior levels, and is
co-author of the best-selling senior text, Basic Inorganic Chemistry,
published by Wiley.
Paul took an interest in writing fiction in 1993, and with the advice and encouragement of author Tony Hillerman, he began working in the summers to write mystery novels set in Holmes County, Ohio, among the Amish. The first of Gaus’s mysteries, Blood of the Prodigal, An Ohio Amish Mystery, Ohio University Press, was published in June of 1999, and a total of six novels have appeared in this series: Broken English, 2000, Clouds without Rain, 2001, Cast a Blue Shadow, 2003, and A Prayer for the Night, 2006. The sixth novel, Separate from the World was published in July of 2008
Background for Gaus’s Ohio Amish Mysteries comes from a seminar course that he taught at The College of Wooster, in which students examined a variety of American cultures, including the Navajo, Branch Davidians, Black Muslims, Japanese, and Amish. Gaus travels and visits frequently in Holmes County (which has the largest Amish population of any settlement in the world), and he took his students there for field trips. He lectures widely about Amish culture at libraries, bookstores, and literary societies, and his books have been featured prominently at Book Expo America and similar professional shows. Gaus’s novels have been reviewed in, for instance, Kirkus Review, Foreword Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Ohioanna Quarterly, and the New York Times Book Review.
To read more about the author visit these sites:
Ohio University Press. Swallow Press
Other Works by the Author
Blood of the Prodigal, Ohio University Press, 1999
Broken English,Ohio University Press, 2000
Clouds Without Rain,Ohio University Press, 2001
Cast a Blue Shadow,Ohio University Press, 2003
A Prayer for the Night, Ohio University Press, 2006