Press Kit
Invite me to your community
My bio:
Olive L. Sullivan is a writer and teacher who lives in Pittsburg, Kansas, but loves to wander. Her most recent travels have taken her on a witch’s ramble of Cornwall and a theater excursion to London via the Queen Mary 2 ocean liner. Seeing new sights, meeting new people and learning new things inform her work and fuel her enthusiasm for sharing what she’s learned through creative workshops in writing and bookbinding. Her background includes teaching at the college level, and she is an award-winning student publication advisor. Her students say her superpower is having complete faith in their abilities to live their dreams. She is a popular presenter of workshops and is on the Kansas Touring Artist roster.
Sample Press Release
Poet and playwright Olive L. Sullivan will be offering a workshop (TOPIC) for teens through adults in (YOUR TOWN) on (DATE). Sullivan, from Pittsburg, Kan., is a Kansas Touring Artist through the Kansas Arts Commission. A former teacher, Sullivan has led writing workshops for various groups, including the Tar Creek Conference in Oklahoma, where participants wrote about environmental action.
As the recipient of a kidney transplant, cancer survivor, and widow, she writes about place, grief, and surviving hard times. She is the author of two full-length poetry collections, a play, and several poems, short stories, and essays in a variety of journals and anthologies. She is a dog-lover and bookbinder.
The workshop will take place at (LOCATION, DATE, TIME).
RESUME
Presentations
“Better Together: Collaborating in the Arts,” presented at The Power of Words Conference, Unity Village, Mo., Sept 28, 2024.
“The Return of Snail Mail,” Flint Hills Festival, May 4, 2024.
“Poetry in Motion: How to make your words leap off the page through collaboration,” presented at the Missouri State Poetry Society Annual Meeting, Springfield, Mo., Sept. 30, 2023.
The Pocket Guide to Desert Survival, play, presented by Midwest Regional Ballet Company, Pittsburg, Kan., July28-30, 2023.
“Collaboration and Team Building in the Student Newsroom,” Society of Professional Journalists Region 7 Conference, Manhattan, Kan., May, 2017.
“The Art of Memory,” Interdisciplinary Education through Art Series at Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, Kan., Feb. 18, 2016.
“The Milky Way at Dawn,” with Annette Billings and Ronda Miller, Salon 360 Mini-Fringe Festival, Kansas City, Mo., Dec. 9, 2015.
“Let’s Put on a Show: Using We-Centered Vocabulary for Success in Collaboration,” Stonecoast MFA, Brunswick, Maine, July 15, 2015.
“Portraits of Success: Developing a Path to Right Livelihood,” with Liz Spencer, Power of Words Conference, Transformative Language Arts Network, Excelsior Springs, Mo., Sept. 20, 2014.
“Getting the Quote,” Missouri College Media Association annual conference, Kirksville, Mo., April 6, 2014.
Poetry Readings/Book Launch Tour for To the Stars through Difficulties: A Kansas Renga in 150 Voices, ed. Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Mammoth Publications, 2012. The Writers Place, Kansas City, Mo., Feb. 1, 2013; Independence Community College, Independence, Kan., Feb. 8, 2013;
“Image is Everything—Almost,” workshop, Whispering Prairie Press Conference, Kansas City, Kan., Oct. 20, 2013.
Poetry Readings/Book Launch Tour for Begin Again: 150 Kansas Poems, ed. Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg. Woodley Press, Topeka: 2011.
Hutchinson Arts Center, Hutchinson, Kan., April 1, 2012; Lawrence Jewish Center, Lawrence, Kan., Dec. 13, 2011; Pittsburg State University Visiting Writers Series, Pittsburg, Kan., Dec. 8, 2011; Prospero’s Bookstore, Westport, Mo., Nov. 13, 2011; Lawrence Public Library, Lawrence, Kan., Nov. 6, 2011; Watermark Bookstore, Wichita, Kan., Nov. 5, 2011.
“Hot Women, Hot Words,” poetry reading, The Percolator, Lawrence, Kan., July 26, 2009.
Creative Writing Workshop, 11th Annual Tar Creek Conference, Miami, Okla., Sept. 2009.
Memoir Writing Workshop, 10th Annual Tar Creek Conference, Miami, Okla., Sept. 2008.
“Our Voices Will Not Subside,” keynote speech at 9th Annual Tar Creek Conference, Miami, Okla., May 2007.
“Take Back the Night,” keynote speech at victims advocacy event, Pittsburg, Kan. Included the poem, “Sheila.” April 28, 2004.
“We Be Women,” one-act play staged as part of the Playwrights Showcase of the Western Region, Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, Arvada, Colo., Aug. 13-15, 2004.
“Building Community: Outsiders Empowering Outsiders at Community Colleges,” The Community Colleges Humanities Association National Conference, San Antonio, Texas, Oct. 29, 1993.
“Cultural Diversity in the English Composition Classroom,” Colorado Community College Composition Conference, Greeley, Colo., March 5, 1993.
“Towards a Writing Philosophy: Setting Goals and Standards for the Writing Classroom,” at the Community College of Aurora, Colo., Jan. 31, 1992.
Books
Skiving Down the Bones, Meadowlark Press, Emporia, Kan., 2022.
Wandering Bone, Meadowlark Press, Emporia, Kan., 2017.
Publications
“Aunt Jane’s Tomatoes,” poem. Eat Your Words: A Kansas Poetry Cookbook. Ed. by Traci Brimhall. Meadowlark Press, Emporia, Kan. TBA.
“The Marsh,” poem. The Writers Place Yearbook 2023, Vol 3, Ed. by Beth Gulley, Maryfrances Wagner, et al. Kansas City, Kan. May 8, 2023.
The Pocket Guide to Desert Survival, play, presented by Midwest Regional Ballet Company, Pittsburg, Kan., July 28-30, 2023.
“The Petaluma Hares,” poem.The Writers Place Yearbook 2022, Vol. 2. Ed. by Beth Gulley, Maryfrances Wagner, et al. Kansas City, Kan., April 2023.
Skiving Down the Bones, Meadowlark Press, Emporia, Kan., 2022.
“Souvenirs for my Father,” essay. 105 Meadowlark Reader Issue #2, Meadowlark Press, Emporia, Kan., Nov. 2021.
“Making Ralston,” poem, Dead Housekeeping, online journal, July 13, 2020.
“Bonnie-O,” short story, Konza: A Bioregional Journal on Living in Place, The Kansas Area Watershed Council, Lawrence, Kan., 2017.
Three poems, “Everyday Mermaids,” “Bless this House,” and “Pin Oak,” in Konza: A Bioregional Journal on Living in Place, The Kansas Area Watershed Council, Lawrence, Kan., 2017.
Wandering Bone, Meadowlark Press, Emporia, Kan., 2017.
“Romeo at Pin Oak,” essay, Konza: A Bioregional Journal on Living in Place, The Kansas Area Watershed Council, Lawrence, Kan. July 2016.
“Smiley’s Bar,” Insurrection (album), Park Avenue Uprising, Pittsburg, Kan., May 20, 2016.
“Pin Oak,” poem, Where I Live Poetry and Photography Series, Silver Birch Press, March 17, 2015.
“The Bone Goddess,” poem, Mythic Poetry Series, Silver Birch Press, Oct. 7, 2014.
“Smiley’s Bar,” poem, Midwest Quarterly, Summer 2014.
“Ad Astra,” poem in To the Stars through Difficulties: A Kansas Renga in 150 Voices, ed. Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Mammoth Publications, 2012
Letter to the editor, Writer’s Weekly online, Feb. 16, 2012.
“Driving West” and “The Seventh Year,” poems in Begin Again: I50 Kansas Poems, ed. Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg. Woodley Press, Topeka, Kan.: 2011.
“Rose’s Lullaby,” Chain of Inspiration (album), Caslon Productions, Broken Arrow, Okla., 2010.
We Start as Water, chapbook published by Sullivan Ink, Pittsburg, Kan.: 2009.
“Reluctantly Airborne,” essay in Flights of Adventure, ed. Ken Larson and Tm Holton, NorLights Press, Nashville, Ind.: 2009.
“Grass,” poem, York (England) Unitarians newsletter, York, England. Sept./Oct. 2007.
“Landslip,” poem, Radiance: The Magazine for Large Women, Oakland, Calif. Spring 1997.
“Real Life,” poem, Radiance: The Magazine for Large Women, Oakland, Calif. Summer 1996 “Yard Work,” poem, Backwoods Home Magazine, Montague, Calif. March/April 1996.
“Coming Back from New Mexico at Night,” poem, Puma Prints, the newsletter of the Chihuahuan Desert Conservation Alliance, Carlsbad, New Mexico. April 1995.
“Waxing/Waning,” short story, A Room of One’s Own, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Summer 1996.
“Gas Station Guru,” poem, Resonance: One World, Many Voices, Summer 1994.
“Baking Day,” poem, The Odessa Poetry Review, Odessa, Mo. Fall 1986.
“Avebury,” “Grandmother’s Ghosts,” poems in The Little Balkans Review, Pittsburg, Kan. Fall/Winter 1982.
contact me
(620) 704-6620 | olive@sullivanbookarts.com