Ohio Author Profiles
Ohio has a rich literary heritage as well as some wonderful contemporary authors. Learn more about them here! You can sort by various categories and see who has participated in our annual book festival by using the category search on the left, or search by keyword (including partial author names) by using the search field on the right.
If you would like to know which Ohio authors and illustrators are available for school and library visits or workshops, visit our School & Library Visits page here.
We continue to add authors, so check back soon!
Patti Flinn
Patti Flinn is an author and novelist from central Ohio who loves food, books, cool jazz, and … food.
Patti’s life-long love of books organically led to a B.A. in English learning to analyze literature. The unique perspective taught her that literature was about so much more than proper grammar and the story on the page. Armed with this knowledge she eventually gave in to the urge to share her own writing, self-publishing the suspense novel, The List, set in the deep south. Though not widely known, the great reviews convinced her that maybe writing was going to be a thing.
Under the pen name, Ava Bleu—proponent of extraordinary love—Patti released The Diva of Peddler’s Creek (winner of Romance Writer’s ink Best Comedy) and Glorious Sunset (finalist, Phyllis Wheatley Award for Fiction). She later penned a different kind of love story with The Ivyhurst Series, delving into relationships among couples and neighbors in a town slowly being gentrified.
In addition to her fiction works Patti has been a grant-writer, a ghostwriter, a copywriter, and her work was featured in The Writer Magazine, The Ascent, and Thrive Global. And when serving the community, efforts have often been related to the area she loves, working as a literacy tutor for the Columbus Literacy Council and ColumbusReads.
As writers often do, Patti has gone through periods of not writing. It was during one of these periods that she indulged her love of baking and started a Cottage Bakery business that, almost immediately, took a back seat due to the pandemic which caused the need to write to go haywire. As a result, fewer calories around the house and a brand-new genre of writing: historical fiction. In September 2022 she released Véronique’s Journey, the story of a young woman of African descent in 18th-century France. The novella is both a parallel introduction to an upcoming full-length series based on a French historical figure, expected to roll out in 2023.
A believer in the importance of literature, communication, the arts, and community service, Patti Flinn strives to encourage everyone to fulfill their dreams and find the “extraordinary” individual within.