# Tim Sullivan (writer)

Timothy Robert Sullivan (June 9, 1948 – November 10, 2024) was an American science fiction novelist, screenwriter, actor, film director and short story writer.
Many of his stories have been critically acknowledged and reprinted. His 1981 short story "Zeke," a tragedy about an extraterrestrial stranded on Earth, has been translated into German and was a finalist for the 1982 Nebula Award for Best Short Story. "Under Glass" (2011), a well-reviewed semi-autobiographical short story with occult hints, has been translated into Chinese and is the basis for a screenplay by director/actor Ron Ford. "Yeshua's Dog" (2013) was also translated into Chinese.

## Early life

Tim Sullivan was born in Bangor, Maine, on June 9, 1948, the son of Charles Edward Sullivan, a United States Postal Service worker (born February 2, 1923), and Lillian Hope Fitzgerald Sullivan (b. March 31, 1924), a stay-at-home mother who raised their children, Charles Edward Sullivan, Jr., and Timothy, the younger son. Sullivan later wrote short stories about his father, including "Hawk on a Flagpole" (2000) and "The Memory Cage" (2014).
Tim and Charlie developed a love of genre fiction from their father, who brought home for them books and comics ranging from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Vladimir Nabokov to Mad magazine. Tim shared these with his neighbors, who included Richard Tozier (who has become a jazz radio personality at Maine Public Broadcasting Network, and who is featured in three Stephen King novels, It, Dreamcatcher and 11/22/63). These show the strong ties among friendships born in Bangor, and Sullivan and Tozier retain a lifelong friendship. The Sullivan brothers attended John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor, as did Tozier. Charlie (1946–1967), a corporal in the United States Marine Corps, died in battle in the Vietnam War.
When Sullivan's father died in 1968, Sullivan and his mother moved to Lake Worth, Florida. Tim Sullivan briefly attended Miami Dade Community College. Later, while studying English literature at Florida Atlantic University, he made a lifelong friendship with Professor Robert A. Collins. Sullivan earned a bachelor's degree while at FAU. Sullivan helped Dr. Collins create what has become the prestigious International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA; originally called Swanncon in honor of fantasy author and former FAU professor Thomas Burnett Swann). Sullivan began but did not complete postgraduate education.
Sullivan lived in Florida from 1968 to 1983, then in Philadelphia, and in the Washington, D.C. area. He moved to southern California in 1988, where he lived for the next twelve years.

## Career

Sullivan has written several novels and many more short stories. He has scripted, directed, and starred in microbudget films in the genres of science fiction and horror, often with his friend Ron Ford. Among his day jobs, Sullivan has worked in construction, in a bookstore, in a library, in a liquor store and other retail sites, as a night guard, as a taxicab driver, and with helping and teaching the mentally challenged.

### Writing

Sullivan edited a horror anthology for Avon Books, Tropical Chills, in 1988. Sullivan also published his first novel, Destiny's End, in 1988. This science fiction novel was followed by The Parasite War in 1989, The Martian Viking in 1991, and Lords of Creation in 1992, and another horror anthology, Cold Shocks (Avon, 1991), among other books.
He befriended Michael Dirda, a chief book reviewer for The Washington Post and, as a result of that friendship, in the 1980s and 1990s Sullivan wrote commissioned reviews of dozens of books for The Washington Post, the Washington Post Book World, and USA Today. Among the fiction and nonfiction he reviewed are included: Kathleen Ann Goonan's The Bones of Time; a review of a novel by Walter Jon Williams, Metropolitan, which Sullivan characterized as highly readable "due largely to pungent characterization and persuasive dialogue"; and Allen Steele's novel The Tranquillity Alternative (1995), which he praised in the same issue of Book World.
He used different versions of his name while publishing fiction: Timothy Robert Sullivan, Timothy R. Sullivan, and Tim Sullivan.

### Acting

Sullivan began his career in film in a collaboration with S. P. Somtow, entitled The Laughing Dead (1989); Sullivan plays a priest losing his faith, Father O'Sullivan, who becomes possessed by a Mayan god of death. Throughout the 1990s, he scripted, directed and acted in several low-budget science fiction and horror films, most notably Twilight of the Dogs (1995) and Hollywood Mortuary (1998), both of which have become cult favorites.
John Clute writes that Sullivan "concentrated for almost a decade on an acting career, though he began to publish short stories again in 2000."

## Personal life and death

After graduating from college, Sullivan lived for many years in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, Southern California. He never married and had no children. In 2000, Sullivan moved to South Florida to care for his ailing mother who died in 2004. In 2003, he moved to South Miami, Florida to share a house with Fiona Kelleghan. He left Florida in 2019 and settled in Newport News, Virginia.
Sullivan was an atheist. He was a constant reader; his bookshelf was filled with science fiction favorites, but also with the works of science popularizers, biographies, and histories. He maintained a Facebook page.
Sullivan died from congestive heart failure at a hospice in Newport News, on November 10, 2024, at the age of 76.

### Literary friendships

Sullivan was roommates with fantasy authors S. P. Somtow in Alexandria, Virginia and Gregory Frost in Philadelphia. He became friends with several Clarion Workshop graduates, such as Kim Stanley Robinson. He was long-time friends with Gardner Dozois, Jack Dann, Pat Cadigan, John Kessel, James Patrick Kelly, John Grant, and Michael Swanwick.
He was part of a group of writers named the "Savage Humanists" by anthologist Fiona Kelleghan.
Sullivan has been tuckerized in the novels of many science fiction writers, including Sharon Webb.