Writer's Block: RISD class inspired author Kate Sullivan's book

Kate Sullivan came to the town of Dighton by way of Boston. According to the children’s book author and illustrator, “my new husband and I discovered the beautiful Taunton River and the town of Dighton, where we lived for ten years.”

Sullivan, who has a degree in French and Latin from Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, Connecticut considers herself “a musician first — a player, singer, performer, composer.”

One of her compositions, Fugitumest” was played by the Kremlin Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 2006.

I met her when she started a small writers’ group in Dighton. We used to meet monthly at a bar on Route 138, even though I seldom go to bars because I don’t drink. I don’t drink because I’m a Quaker and Quakers don’t drink alcohol. Whenever we get the urge to have a drink we have a bowl of oatmeal instead. Thank God for instant oatmeal.

Much like the mighty Taunton River along whose banks she once lived before moving to Newburyport, “Music is the deep river that runs through my life,” she said. “I am happiest at the magic alchemy of music, words and pictures.”

According to Sullivan, she has been writing for a number of years including screenplays, poetry and short stories. Her newest book, that she wrote and illustrated, and which was published in October 2013 by Sleeping Bear Press, is, “On Linden Square.” The beautifully illustrated children’s book tells the story of little Stella Mae Culpepper, who observes all her quirky city neighbors from her tall bay windows, but nobody talks with anybody until a blizzard changes everything.

“It is a story of community and the importance and richness of friends and neighbors,” Sullivan said.

Author Andre Dubus III called it, “Delightful! A really lovely, affirmative piece of work.” Dubus is the author of the highly acclaimed novel and subsequent movie, “House of Sand and Fog.”

According to Sullivan, “Writing is so many things. Journals have helped me sort myself out. Plays have helped me tell stories. Poems have helped me try to capture strong, yet fleeting emotions. Short stories have helped me learn to invent. ”

The writing of “On Linden Square,” came out of a Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) course she took called, “How to Create A Children’s Book Dummy.”

Although she was working on another book at the time it didn’t quite come to fruition, “but what did emerge was an old story about a blizzard in Brookline, Massachusetts,” she said.

Sullivan enjoys visiting schools to read to young students and also to engage them in in the writing process.

“They become the author/illustrators, describing characters in their own neighborhoods,” she said. “I started the ‘Who’s Your Neighbor?’ project, which collects the neighborhood stories and pictures of young authors.”

Besides the book, Sullivan runs a blog at onlindensquare.com.

For writers, Sullivan’s advice is: “Writing, like any daring attempt to say something, helps us to learn about ourselves — over and over again.”

“Writing fulfills that urge to record things, to keep a tally, to remember what it felt like to be there, wherever that was,” she said.

According to Sullivan, Dighton’s proximity to Providence permitted her to study music composition with the then chairman of the music department at Brown University.

“It was there that I wrote a setting of Pinocchio, premiered by the Providence String Quartet which was accompanied by a video I created, featuring shadow images, puppets and original paintings,” she said. “My 5 year old neighbor in Dighton played Pinocchio.”

Her music can be found at sullykate.com.

J. North Conway is a New England poet and the author of a dozen nonfiction books. He lives in Assonet, Massachusetts. Writers interested in being featured in Writer’s Block are encouraged to contact juljackcon@comcast.net.