Paul Manytravels asked Matthew J. Sullivan:

When you wrote Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, did you have to return to Denver as part of your research to be sure your descriptions were accurate?

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

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