Wooster resident Paul Gaus was named the 2011 Writer of the Year at The University of Akron Wayne College’s Writing Awards ceremony on Saturday, April 2. The ceremony was held during the College’s annual Writers Workshop.
Gaus, who writes under the name P.L. Gaus, is the author of the Amish-Country Mysteries from Plume, a division of Penguin Group USA. The mystery series consists of seven books set primarily in Holmes County. Each book was written to illustrate an important aspect of Amish faith, culture or lifestyle. Gaus says the goal of the books is to illuminate Amish culture as much as possible.
Gaus recently retired as the Benjamin S. Brown Professor of Chemistry from The College of Wooster after 31 years of teaching and is the co-author of the best-selling senior text, Basic Inorganic Chemistry, published in its third edition in 1995 by John Wiley and Sons. Gaus took an interest in writing fiction in 1993 and his first book, Blood of the Prodigal, was originally published by Ohio University Press in 1999. His seventh book in the series, Harmless as Doves, is set for release in 2011. Other novels in the series include: Broken English, 2000, Clouds without Rain, 2001, Cast a Blue Shadow, 2003, A Prayer for the Night, 2006, and Separate from the World, 2008.
Gaus was the keynote speaker at the Wayne College writing event and shared two important tips on how to be a writer, saying, “First, you can’t write what you don’t know, and second, you shouldn’t write what you don’t like. That is- don’t set a story in Hawaii if you’ve never lived there, and don’t write about cowboys if you don’t like them. So, write what you know, and write what you like. You’ll be a lot happier as a writer if you do those two things.”
The Writer of the Year award recognizes excellence and achievement by a published writer who resides in Wayne, Holmes or Medina counties. The achievement is for a lifetime of work or for a recent success. The honor includes a distinctive award and a $500 cash prize. Previous Writer of the Year award recipients are Bob Adamov of Wooster, Joanne Lehman of Apple Creek and David Kline of Fredericksburg.