Ask the Author: Matthew J. Sullivan
Answered Questions (17)
Matthew J. Sullivan
Hey Corey--sorry to just be seeing this *question*, but I'm really grateful for your note and moved that it moved you. Many thanks for taking the time to make my day :) Take care out there.
Matthew J. Sullivan
Ah, that's really cool! I put that in there just for you! :) Thanks for reading it!
Matthew J. Sullivan
Hi Zachary! Sorry--I just stumbled upon your question. Love the Coke reference! :) I appreciate it. I'm working on a new book as we *speak*, a small-town murder mystery with an oddball character or five. No idea when it will be done, but I'm finding myself writing every day for the first time in a long time, so I have hope. Many thanks.
Matthew J. Sullivan
Thanks, Michelle--yep, plugging away on a new one. :) I appreciate the support! Be well.
Matthew J. Sullivan
Hi Drizia. Great question! It sounds somewhat high-minded, but I'm a true believer in seeking the story that only you can tell, and finding ways to tell it that are honest and that reflect your personality. Good luck with the article!
Matthew J. Sullivan
Thank you, Jack! Nothing happening on the film front, but that would be fun (I think???).
Matthew J. Sullivan
Hi Kathy! Thanks so much for your generous note.
Ah, the eggs... kind of intense and grim, but I was imagining how Lydia, at her young age, might try to process the sounds she was hearing happen in the house as she was hiding. To me, it's a moment of delusion, denial--a kid coping with something that was horrible, and way beyond her ability to understand...
Ah, the eggs... kind of intense and grim, but I was imagining how Lydia, at her young age, might try to process the sounds she was hearing happen in the house as she was hiding. To me, it's a moment of delusion, denial--a kid coping with something that was horrible, and way beyond her ability to understand...
Matthew J. Sullivan
Thank you!!! I'm working on it!
Matthew J. Sullivan
No secret here... I'm a 1970 kid!
Matthew J. Sullivan
That's great, Jim... thanks for reading it and hosting the website! I love all the bookstore photos people posted, too!
Matthew J. Sullivan
Hi Paul. Sort of, but mostly not. I grew up in Colorado and lived there through my twenties, and my dad still lives in the house in Aurora that I grew up in, so the use of Denver as a setting felt highly personal. I moved away in 1998, but will always think of Colorado as my home, so the setting, for me, was really an intimate reflection of my memories. In a strange way, because I wrote this entire book over a many years while living in rural Washington state, the Colorado I created in the book was a fictional and very nostalgic version of the Colorado that I really missed (and still miss).... my old haunts, I guess, as filtered through my nostalgia. What's personally interesting to me about it was that even though I visited family in Denver every year, and always made a point of going to Tattered Cover, or walking around downtown and Capitol Hill while there (Pete's breakfast burritos!), I spent way, way, way more time in the Colorado of my imagination, while sitting at a desk in central Washington, than in the real Colorado. I did read some books on Denver (a few great ones by Mark Barnhouse), but more for fun than for research.
That's kind of a roundabout answer, huh? But thanks for your question! Take care, Paul.
~matts
That's kind of a roundabout answer, huh? But thanks for your question! Take care, Paul.
~matts
Matthew J. Sullivan
Hi Isaias.
I'm chipping away at another mystery novel, somewhat dark, somewhat quirky, wholly unrelated to Bright Ideas. It's about a young woman who grows up in an eerie small town in the Pacific Northwest, a place where a lot of people have been overlooked or forgotten. It's a work in progress right now, but is slowly coming together. Thanks for your kind words and your interest!
~matt
I'm chipping away at another mystery novel, somewhat dark, somewhat quirky, wholly unrelated to Bright Ideas. It's about a young woman who grows up in an eerie small town in the Pacific Northwest, a place where a lot of people have been overlooked or forgotten. It's a work in progress right now, but is slowly coming together. Thanks for your kind words and your interest!
~matt
Matthew J. Sullivan
Hi Wendy!
Great question. There were a number of different early seeds that happened when I was working as a bookseller. One of them was working at a bookstore and discovering, on a number of occasions, that someone was going around and cutting images out of books, probably with a little utility knife or razor blade, then putting them back on the shelves. It was puzzling and deeply disturbing. Another early seed happened when another bookseller and I ended up (against all of the rules) chasing a book thief through downtown Denver. He had tons of books packed into his pants, trench coat, shirt. Both of those experiences got me thinking about people's motives for committing book-related crimes, which led me to imagine these complicated personal histories... and you can see where the story grew from there.
Thanks for asking!
matts
Great question. There were a number of different early seeds that happened when I was working as a bookseller. One of them was working at a bookstore and discovering, on a number of occasions, that someone was going around and cutting images out of books, probably with a little utility knife or razor blade, then putting them back on the shelves. It was puzzling and deeply disturbing. Another early seed happened when another bookseller and I ended up (against all of the rules) chasing a book thief through downtown Denver. He had tons of books packed into his pants, trench coat, shirt. Both of those experiences got me thinking about people's motives for committing book-related crimes, which led me to imagine these complicated personal histories... and you can see where the story grew from there.
Thanks for asking!
matts
Matthew J. Sullivan
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!
Matthew J. Sullivan
Hi Alex.
I love this interpretation! I wish I could take total ownership of it and say that it was my intention all along, but alas, not on any conscious level. (Except Plath, as you point out.) That said, I really was focusing on a cast of characters who used books to ward off their demons and shore up their identities, so maybe there's more to those connections, after all?
Thanks for the close reading, Alex.
Cheers.
matts
I love this interpretation! I wish I could take total ownership of it and say that it was my intention all along, but alas, not on any conscious level. (Except Plath, as you point out.) That said, I really was focusing on a cast of characters who used books to ward off their demons and shore up their identities, so maybe there's more to those connections, after all?
Thanks for the close reading, Alex.
Cheers.
matts
Matthew J. Sullivan
Hi Lynn. First, sorry I'm just getting to answering this... I somehow missed seeing your question (and the others) until now. But thanks so much for your interest in these characters. At the moment, I'm working on a novel that is set in the small town Northwest, a sort-of rural noir, and I tend to focus on one project at a time. I'm not sure if I will ever go back directly into the world of Bright Ideas. One story I might tell would be focused on Detective Harry Moberg in a sort-of parallel world to Lydia's, but even that is only a (proverbial) sparkle in my eye at the moment. Thanks for asking and for your patience! Happy reading.
Matthew J. Sullivan
Hi Cynthia. Great question! I just had an essay published about this very subject, actually! (I pasted the url below*, if you're interested.)
My wife Libby and I are both avid readers and our tastes dovetail a lot, so we do read (and talk about!) a lot of the same books, mostly literary fiction. The biggest place where we differ is that I tend toward slightly darker fiction and she reads a greater variety of books, including a lot more "upbeat" nonfiction (like books on trees and artists). As for our kids, we visit a lot of bookstores and libraries and tend to plunk them down in the kids/YA section and let them discover on their own. But we also always sneak a book or two into their piles, things we'd like them to read... and sometimes it actually works!
Thanks for asking, Cynthia!
*The essay, "Two Decades of Reading Beside the Woman I Love," is available here:
http://lithub.com/two-decades-of-read...
**If you're interested, I also published a different essay in the New York Times about Libby and I and books. This one focuses a bit more on overcoming the struggles: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/st...
My wife Libby and I are both avid readers and our tastes dovetail a lot, so we do read (and talk about!) a lot of the same books, mostly literary fiction. The biggest place where we differ is that I tend toward slightly darker fiction and she reads a greater variety of books, including a lot more "upbeat" nonfiction (like books on trees and artists). As for our kids, we visit a lot of bookstores and libraries and tend to plunk them down in the kids/YA section and let them discover on their own. But we also always sneak a book or two into their piles, things we'd like them to read... and sometimes it actually works!
Thanks for asking, Cynthia!
*The essay, "Two Decades of Reading Beside the Woman I Love," is available here:
http://lithub.com/two-decades-of-read...
**If you're interested, I also published a different essay in the New York Times about Libby and I and books. This one focuses a bit more on overcoming the struggles: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/st...
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