User:Michael C Sullivan

Michael Charles Sullivan is the author of four books: In Search of a Perfect World: A Historical Perspective on the Phenomenon of Millennialism and Dissatisfaction With The World As It Is;  Fulfillment:It's All About Power; House of Sun, and The Desert is Green.

Sullivan was born in Chicago in 1942 and graduated from North Park University there in 1966, with a bachelor of arts degree in English and a minor in psychology.

Following graduation, he took a job as a casualty insurance underwriter with Aetna Life & Casualty Co., on LaSalle Street in Chicago. In a totally surprising move, he decided to change careers and go into journalism in 1968. He moved his family to Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where he began a 40-year career in journalism and communications as a reporter with the Ironwood Daily Globe. During that span, he was employed with several publications as an editor or reporter including the Independent, Gallup, NM; Herald/Review, Sierra Vista, AZ; Wood River Journal, Hailey, ID; Times-News, Twin Falls, ID; Mining Journal, Marquette, MI; Upper Peninsula Sunday Times, Marquette, MI; Gazette-Times, Corvallis, OR; and the Aspen Daily News, Aspen, CO.

In Search of a Perfect World: A Historical Perspective on the Phenomenon of Millennialism and Dissatisfaction With The World As It Is was initially published in February of 1999 under the title Making Sense of the Millennium. This was inspired by the widespread public anxiety Sullivan witnessed during the runup to the Year 2000. This work was updated in 2005 and re-released as In Search of a Perfect World. In it, Sullivan traces the history of millennialist movements dating back to the biblical era, as well as other utopian and other visionary political, social and religious movements that attempted to recreate the world in conformance with their particular ideology. Also addressed are various end-times prophecies, such as the Mayan calendar's prediction that the current world would "end" on Dec. 21, 2012.

Sullivan left full-time employment in February of 2006 from the Herald/Review in Sierra Vista, Arizona and embarked on a three-year journey that took him through Mexico, Belize, the U.S. Southwest and Pacific Northwest that resulted in the publication of Fulfillment: It's All About Power, which he describes as an metaphysical/spiritual/mystery/thriller centered upon the quest for a mysterious Mayan crystal skull, reputed to have extraordinary mystical powers -- including the transmission of free energy. In it, Sullivan addresses basic existential questions -- including the meaning of "fulfillment" -- and examines the strange relationship between the rise and fall of the Mayan and Anasazi civilizations.

He returned to newspaper work as a copy editor with the Aspen Daily News, in 2006-07, and covering crime for the Independent, in Gallup, N.M., 2010-2013. He retired again in 2013 and returned to Arizona.

His second novel, House of Sun, is an historical novel set in the arid Four Corners region of the U.S. Southwest. The tale chronicles the evolution of the indigenous people of that region, from prehistoric times to the present. It is based on the research he conducted while living in the region, both academic and experiential.

His most-recent novel, "The Desert is Green," is a murder mystery set in Southern Arizona. In July of 2014, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which metastasized into the skeletal system. He left Arizona to reconnect with his family in Idaho and to receive treatment for the illness.