Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Follow Me into the Dark
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://lovelifeeat.com/
CITY: Los Angeles
STATE: CA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: American
AU blog: https://lovelifeeat.com/ * http://www.identitytheory.com/featauth/sullivan.html * https://lovelifeeat.com/about-2/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Brooklyn, NY.
EDUCATION:Graduated from Fordham University; Columbia University, M.F.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and consultant. CEO of Phoebe & Kate, a marketing collaborative. Previously, worked at an investment bank.
AVOCATIONS:Yoga.
WRITINGS
Maintains the food blog, Love Life Eat.
SIDELIGHTS
Felicia C. Sullivan is a writer and consultant based in Los Angeles, California. Originally from Brooklyn, New York, she holds a bachelor’s degree from Fordham University and an M.F.A. from Columbia University. Sullivan is the CEO of Phoebe & Kate, a marketing collaborative involving only women. She maintains a food blog called Love Life Eat.
The Sky Isn't Visible from Here
In 2008, Sullivan released her memoir, The Sky Isn’t Visible from Here. In this volume, she recalls the difficulty of her childhood, as the daughter of a mother addicted to cocaine. Sullivan’s mother, Rosina, began using cocaine with a boyfriend from Israel named Avram. Her habit became increasingly bad and led her to steal from the restaurants where she was a waitress. Rosina was repeatedly fired and had volatile relationships with various men. Sullivan recalls being embarrassed of her mother’s rough attitude and vowing never to be like her. Eventually, she and Sullivan moved to Valley Stream, a wealthy town on Long Island, New York. During her high school years, Sullivan began drinking and shoplifting. She used these behaviors as a way to punish her mother. Despite her promise never to be like Rosina, Sullivan began using cocaine while working at an investment bank after graduating with her bachelor’s degree. She tells of breaking her habit and attending the writing program at Columbia University. Sullivan also recalls some of her early romantic relationships.
A Publishers Weekly writer suggested: “A poignant memoir by writer Sullivan palpates the wounds of growing up with an unstable, cocaine-abusing mother.” Jan Brue Enright, critic in Library Journal, remarked: “Told through flashbacks, her narrative is harrowing.”
Follow Me into the Dark
Sullivan’s first novel is Follow Me into the Dark. Kate is the anger narrator of the first section of the book. She is furious with a young woman named Gillian, who happens to look very much like her, for having an affair with her stepfather as her mother is in the last stages of her fight with cancer. Kate lights Gillian’s hair in flames in a hotel room. Kate’s mother kills herself, enraging Kate even more. Meanwhile, a serial killer is murdering women that look like Gillian and Kate, and Kate worries that she may be the next victim.
“Many moments are engaging, but vagueness and withheld information obscure the more compelling human mysteries,” commented a Publishers Weekly reviewer. A contributor to Kirkus Reviews described the book as “a searing portrayal of a woman’s complicated grief” and “an original, spellbinding, and horrifying read.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2017, review of Follow Me into the Dark.
Library Journal, February 15, 2008, Jan Brue Enright, review of The Sky isn’t Visible from Here, p. 114.
Publishers Weekly, October 22, 2007, review of The Sky Isn’t Visible from Here, p. 44; January 30, 2017, review of Follow Me into the Dark, p. 175.
ONLINE
Identity Theory, http://www.identitytheory.com/ (July 24, 2003), author biography.
Love Life Eat, https://lovelifeeat.com/ (October 31, 2017), author website and blog.*
Hi! I’m Felicia, and welcome to my home! Food has always been my great, epic love. From the moment I begged my mother to photograph me whisking eggs when I was ten to the day I made my first three-tier chocolate cake without splattering the walls, to the year that food was the one thing that kept my hands steady when nothing else would — I have, and always will be, in love with food.
I’m an award-winning published author (psst: my memoir, The Sky Isn’t Visible From Here was published in 2008) with a novel, Follow Me Into the Dark coming out in March of 2017. I’m a proud Fordham + Columbia graduate who has built businesses and brands for nearly two decades. Now, I’m a free agent (translation: consultant) and CEO of an all-women creative marketing collaborative Phoebe & Kate, working with mid-sized agencies and billion-dollar brands. Essentially, I help smart people tell great stories. I’m passionate about creativity online and off, whether I’m helping to build businesses, crafting short stories, or photographing bread loaves fresh out of the oven. While I’m a clean eater, I’ve never met a blueberry crumble muffin or a truffle macaroni and cheese I didn’t like.
Love. Life. Eat. is a celebration of my two great loves: food + writing. You’ll find works-in-progress, recipes from my kitchen and favorite cookbooks, and books I’m reading along the way.
I was born + raised in New York and now I call Los Angeles home.
You can find me on Tumblr, Flickr, Medium, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Twitter. My email: lovelifeeatny-at-gmail-dot-com. Please note that I do not accept pitches or requests for advertisements or product reviews of any kind. I also do not accept nominations for WordPress awards created by bloggers to drive traffic to their sites. I’m also unable to read your writing or provide business advice–for free.
Felicia C. Sullivan
felicia sullivanPosted: July 24, 2003
Felicia Sullivan is a girl that likes pancakes and her meat well done. She’ll wait all year for the two weeks that lilacs are in full bloom to decorate her coatroom-sized apartment, and she’ll buy three boxes of cereal because, well, one can never have enough cereal. She likes to blast Led Zeppelin with all the windows in her house raised high. Felicia is a yoga junkie and a culinary goddess. Fish and those in the fish family give her vertigo, and pop music tends to confuse her. Felicia’s most favorite and hated word is home.
Born in Brooklyn, Felicia was a latch-key city kid, omnipotent and proud in her Converse All-Starz. Her first attempts at writing were two haikus at age 5 – one about lightening and the other, her mother. For years, she would pen poems on scraps, type them on a Commodore 64, a toaster-shaped Apple. As a teenager, she lived in Long Island – fodder for her adult fiction. Never quite fitting in (she wasn’t a cheerleader and she had no desire for student council), Felicia took up books – Cheever, Salinger, Faulkner – her triumvirate of great men. In her high school yearbook, everyone wished her well, said things like: Good luck with that writing! and You have one twisted sense of humor!
In college, she majored in finance because she saw Wall Street one too many times and numbers came easy to her. Felicia stood out, excelled. And this seemed all well and good, this smooth trajectory until three years at a major investment bank and those ill-fitted suits and pale hose wore her down. Collecting letters of recommendation that were to be sent to Harvard, Wharton and Stern MBA programs, they instead were shipped to various MFA programs. She’d never shown anyone her work (well unless you count her cat Ziti – Felicia has an obsession with Italian food and thinks this whole non-carb world is nonsense). When Columbia called to congratulate her, the first words out of her mouth were, Okay, who put you up to this?
Sifting through a failed dot-com and a tough first semester at Columbia, she took a break from both to focus on her writing and get her proverbial house in order. After a breakthrough savasana pose in yoga, the idea for Small Spiral Notebook was born. In August 2001, Felicia gathered friends and funds to create a community that would celebrate great writing and art that had been previous ignored by the politics of the publishing world. First-time poets, established writers and all those that simply had affection for literature found a home on this little zine that could.
Fueled by modest publishing success and her return to Columbia, new characters, and a collection of short stories were brewing in 2002. Currently, Felicia is almost finished with a collection of stories loosely titled, The Business of Leaving. In the back of that crowded head (she now co-directs a non-fiction series at KGB BAR in NYC and will soon bring Small Spiral Notebook to print), a novel stirs – characters based in Weimar Austria. An examination of the delineation of the German culture after the Great War and their subsequent acceptance of Nazism. During 2002-2003, Felicia has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, has published in numerous on-line and print journals and is in full fundraising mode for a print annual of her literary journal.
An obsessive reader, piles and piles of books cover the floors, shelves and bookcases of her studio apartment. Currently on the agenda: Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, Aimee Bender’s The Girl in The Flammable Skirt, Virginia Woolf’s The Years, among others. A fan of food, she is currently working on perfecting her apple pie and cranapple crisp.
F.A.Q.S
Products, Events, and Reviews
This space is incredibly personal and not a home for promotional content. As such, I do not post reviews, links, or anything promotional or connected to a publicist or brand representative. Further translation: PLEASE DO NOT PITCH ME PRODUCT REVIEWS, ANNOUNCEMENTS, SWEEPSTAKES, SPONSORED POSTS, EVENTS AND THE LIKE. I only post about the things I’ve discovered on my own or through trusted friends and peers. I don’t post affiliate links or accept payment, in any form, for sharing the things I love on my blog. This space is my hobby, not my business.
Advertising: I do not accept advertising, in any form, on my site. That includes banner ads, sponsored posts, paid posts, etc. This will not change, so please do not ask. This is a completely ad-free space.
Food Photography
If I look at the food photos I’ve taken since 2007, it’s pretty frightening. I started out with a simple point and shoot, and then graduated to a DSLR. All photos I’ve taken recently have been with a Canon 5D Mark II with a 50mm/1.2 lens. I use a few white foam boards to reflect light. While I’m not the most adept at food photography, my advice is to keep practicing. I’ve learned a lot from reading posts from David Lebovitz, Smitten Kitchen, The Faux Martha, Desserts for Breakfast, among others. I’m less interested in styling food and more fascinated by showing you exactly what it is I loved about the dish.
Guest Posts
This space is wholly my own — my voice, my food, my photographs — my not-so-private scrapbook of all the things I adore. Having someone write on this space is akin to having a stranger come in my home and host a dinner party. While I’m extremely flattered that you’d like my blog, I do not accept offers of guest posts. I will, however, occasionally post stories from friends from whom I’ve solicited work.
Novel Intentions
Algonquin Books published my memoir in 2008 [HarperCollins published the paperback in 2009], The Sky Isn’t Visible From Here, and I’m excited to announce that The Feminist Press will publish my novel, Follow Me Into the Dark in March, 2017.
QUOTED: "Many moments are engaging, but vagueness and withheld information obscure the more compelling human mysteries."
Follow Me into the Dark
Publishers Weekly.
264.5 (Jan. 30, 2017): p175.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Follow Me into the Dark
Felicia C. Sullivan. Feminist, $16.95 trade
paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-55861-945-6
Sullivan's debut novel (after her memoir, The Sky Isn't Visible from Here) opens with a gripping scene in a hotel room
where a woman's hair is on fire. As Kate, the narrator of the first chapter, describes the incident, certain details become
clear: Kate's mother is dying of cancer; Gillian, the woman in the hotel room, has been sleeping with Kate's stepfather;
and Kate is the one who set Gillian's hair on fire. Other details, however, remain hazy as a story of intergenerational
pain, abuse, and mental illness unfurls. Truth becomes slippery as the narrative jumps in time and point of view,
leaving as many questions as clues. Gillian has her own story of grief to share, and Jonah, Kate's stepbrother, seems to
match the profile of a local serial killer. It quickly becomes clear that many of the characters' own accounts cannot be
trusted, and reading becomes an exercise in fitting the pieces together. Many moments are engaging, but vagueness and
withheld information obscure the more compelling human mysteries of the book. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Follow Me into the Dark." Publishers Weekly, 30 Jan. 2017, p. 175+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA480195156&it=r&asid=9f90ad3388e4cb177e36a98936ee5438.
Accessed 15 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A480195156
QUOTED: "a searing portrayal of a woman's complicated grief."
"an original, spellbinding, and horrifying read."
10/15/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1508103598434 2/4
Sullivan, Felicia C.: FOLLOW ME INTO THE
DARK
Kirkus Reviews.
(Jan. 15, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Sullivan, Felicia C. FOLLOW ME INTO THE DARK Feminist Press (Adult Fiction) $16.95 3, 14 ISBN: 978-1-
55861-945-6
A searing portrayal of a woman's complicated grief.Sullivan's (The Sky Isn't Visible from Here: A Memoir, 2009) first
novel is not a straightforward saga about how pain is passed down through generations. Rather, it traces the effects of
death by suicide and murder using nonlinear vignettes that dip in and out of three decades, from the late 1960s to the
present day. The plot is delivered in poetic fragments and dialogue. We first meet Kate, a baker who's consumed by
rage at a teenager, Gillian, who's sleeping with her stepfather, James, while her mother, Ellie, is dying of lung cancer.
Kate's rage doesn't subside when Ellie commits suicide; it only grows. Rage, it seems, is not a new emotion for Kate
but one that has been festering inside her for a long time: "the precision of baking cakes comforts me. Right now I need
to follow an outline. I need to color in the lines. This is how I get through my days without screaming. At night, I bite
into my pillows and swallow some of the feathers." Kate and Gillian are doppelgangers in a terrible way; after she
watches news about a serial killer, Kate realizes "all the victims resemble that woman. Gillian. And since I look just
like her, someone out there is killing versions of me." In early foreshadowing, Gillian tells her stepbrother, Jonah, "I
want to be a person who turns over leaves," only for him to reply, "News flash: leaves look the same on both sides."
This is an exploration of violence and the lengths one will go to to fulfill desires too dangerous and abnormal to be
spoken of except to others who share them. It's also a novel that shows how habits leap from one generation to the next
and untreated mental illness morphs into something profoundly damaging. An original, spellbinding, and horrifying
read.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Sullivan, Felicia C.: FOLLOW ME INTO THE DARK." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Jan. 2017. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA477242332&it=r&asid=6ffaf9ab4255891891778811bd1dc597.
Accessed 15 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A477242332
QUOTED: "Told through flashbacks, her narrative is harrowing."
10/15/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1508103598434 3/4
Sullivan, Felicia C. The Sky isn't Visible from
Here
Jan Brue Enright
Library Journal.
133.3 (Feb. 15, 2008): p114.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Sullivan, Felicia C. The Sky isn't Visible from Here. Algonquin. Feb. 2008. c.272p. ISBN 978-1-56512-515-5. $23.95.
AUTOBIOG
Lev Tolstoy famously said, "All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own
way." Sullivan both proves and disproves this statement in her memoir. Like that of many memoirists of late, Sullivan's
childhood was a horror of physical, sexual, and chemical abuse. Her single mother was a master manipulator, thief, and
cocaine addict. Sullivan spent her childhood in Brooklyn, following her unpredictable mother as she careened from
one man to another, one job to another, one apartment to another. Sullivan attempted to reinvent herself via a variety of
friends, hairstyles, and a rich imaginative life. Unsurprisingly, she ended up as a drug-addicted adult, although with a
college education and a slot in the prestigious Columbia University writing program. Told through flashbacks, her
narrative is harrowing. What makes her family different from other unhappy families is that Sullivan eventually came
to terms with the person her mother was and learned to accept the love she was able to give her. The author shakily
worked her way to living a dean and sober life, which her mother could never achieve. Recommended for public
libraries.--Jan Brue Enright, Augustana Coll. Lib., Sioux Falls, SD
Enright, Jan Brue
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Enright, Jan Brue. "Sullivan, Felicia C. The Sky isn't Visible from Here." Library Journal, 15 Feb. 2008, p. 114.
General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA175629856&it=r&asid=f0dcf8295c278514f81869eb898ed25f.
Accessed 15 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A175629856
QUOTED: "A poignant memoir by writer Sullivan palpates the wounds of growing up with an unstable, cocaine-abusing mother."
10/15/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1508103598434 4/4
The Sky Isn't Visible from Here
Publishers Weekly.
254.42 (Oct. 22, 2007): p44.
COPYRIGHT 2007 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Sky Isn't Visible from Here FELICIA C. SULLIVAN. Algonquin, $23.95 (272p) ISBN 978-1-56512-515-5
A poignant memoir by writer Sullivan palpates the wounds of growing up with an unstable, cocaine-abusing mother.
The young narrator's emotionally manipulative mother, Rosina, worked as a waitress at whatever Brooklyn diner hadn't
fired her yet for stealing from the cash box in order to feed the increasingly destructive cocaine habit she formed while
living with her Israeli-born boyfriend, Avram. Sullivan grew up cringing in the shadow of her crass, chain-smoking
mother, who moved from boyfriend to boyfriend, from Sunset Park, Brooklyn, to upscale Valley Stream, Long Island.
Sullivan tried hard to distinguish herself in school, despite drinking heavily as a teenager to ease social pressure and
shoplifting to strike back angrily at her mother. Later, she explains, she fell into similar patterns of self-anesthetizing
with cocaine and alcohol while grasping after a lucrative career in finance in her early 20s. Sullivan's memoir cuts
predictably back and forth in time and features some memorable types, such as needy early girlfriends whose mothers
were as wacky as her own; junkie Aunt Marisol who died of an overdose; and her mother's battering boyfriend Eddie.
Putting herself through Fordham, then Columbia's M.F.A. program hardly eased Sullivan's pain, but the act of writing
purges her memory. (Feb.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Sky Isn't Visible from Here." Publishers Weekly, 22 Oct. 2007, p. 44. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA170508700&it=r&asid=6dd579cb07ed78814540fbda2ef4fd83.
Accessed 15 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A170508700