[OPLINLIST] Author Visit

[Andrea Adkins]

The Washington County Public Library invites you to join us on Saturday, March 2, 2013 at 1 p.m. at the Campus Martius Museum as Paul L. Gaus presents “My Amish-Country Mysteries & the Interesting Amish People of Holmes County”. This event will feature a lecture by the author followed by a question & answer period and book signing. 

Paul L. Gaus was born in Athens, Ohio, in 1949, and he has lived in Ohio for most of his life.  He has lived in Wooster, Ohio, for the past 33 years with his wife Madonna.  Paul's extensive knowledge of the culture and lifestyle of the Ohio Amish comes from over thirty years of travel throughout Holmes and surrounding counties in Ohio, where the world's largest Amish and Mennonite population sprawls out over the countryside near Millersburg, Wooster, and Sugarcreek.  

Paul took an interest in writing fiction in 1993, and with the advice and encouragement of author Tony Hillerman, he began writing mystery novels set among the Amish in Holmes County, Ohio. The first of Gaus's mysteries, Blood of the Prodigal, An Ohio Amish Mystery, was published by Ohio University Press in June of 1999, and a total of seven novels have appeared in this series: Broken English, 2000, Clouds without Rain, 2001, Cast a Blue Shadow, 2003, A Prayer for the Night, 2006, Separate from the World, 2008, and Harmless as Doves, 2011.  An eighth novel, The Names of Our Tears, will be released on May 28, 2013. 
All of Paul's stories have now been republished by Plume (a division of Penguin Group USA) as The Amish-Country Mysteries, and these editions have been embraced by Christian retailers such as CBD.com, Family Christian Stores, and LifeWay. The eighth and future novels will be published as The Amish-Country Mysteries by Plume.

Paul and his wife Madonna still travel frequently in Holmes County.  He lectures widely about Amish culture at libraries, bookstores, literary societies, and the like, and his books have been featured at Book Expo America and similar professional shows and book fairs around the country. Paul frequently attends writer's conventions such as Malice Domestic and Bouchercon.  Paul's novels have been reviewed in prominent journals and newspapers, for instance, Kirkus Reviews, ForeWord Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Booklist, Ohioana Quarterly, and the New York Times Book Review.

Paul retired recently as the Benjamin S. Brown Professor of Chemistry at The College of Wooster, where he was 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 of Chemistry at the University of Illinois, Texas A&M University, University of Wisconsin (Madison), and The Ohio State University. In his academic career, he taught chemistry at the freshman, junior, and senior levels, and he is co-author of the best-selling senior text, Basic Inorganic Chemistry, published in its third edition in 1995, by John Wiley and Sons.

This event will be held at the Campus Martius Museum located at 601 Second Street in Marietta. Parking is available in the lot off of St. Clair Street or at the Ohio River Museum on Front Street. The event is sponsored by the Washington County Public Library System with thanks to the Campus Martius Museum for the use of their facilities.


Andrea B. Adkins, Information Services Manager
Washington County Public Library - Marietta
615 Fifth Street, Marietta, OH 45750
740-373-1057 x208
andrea.adkins at oplin.org