Medfield-Raised Author to Autograph New Book on Saturday

Author Mary Sullivan will be at Park Street Books on Saturday to sign copies of her new book, Dear Blue Sky.

Sullivan grew up on Juniper Lane and is a 1984 graduate of Medfield High School.

Dear Blue Sky is about a girl whose brother goes to war in Iraq, and her correspondence with an Iraqi girl whose life has been torn apart by the war.

"I wrote Dear Blue Sky because, like the main character Cassie, I was mad about the war," Sullivan told Medfield Patch.  "It was so strange to me that here, in the United States, one would never know there was a war going on.  No sacrifices were being made except by the 1% who serve and protect our country overseas."

"I'd read in the paper about an 18-year old who was blown up, leaving his family, his wife or kids behind.  I watched the soldiers departing from the Cambridge Common once and felt so moved by their deployment--and I felt the futility of the war," said Sullivan who now lives in Cambridgeport.

"Dear friends from Medfield had a son who was fighting in Iraq.  Then I started reading Iraqi blogs, mainly by girls there, who were desperate to have their voices heard.  These girls had no control over the bombs dropping over their country. The only thing they could do was tell the world about it on a blog.  I wanted my readers to empathize with the families here whose sons and daughters were fighting in the war and the families who were on the other side, who had no electricity, no water, bombs and snipers, whose lives were in danger going to work or school," she said.

According to her website, Sullivan has ghostwritten for the Beacon Street Girl series, and is a freelance consultant for Grub Street, a writing organization based in Boston.  She is  currently working on a new Young Adult novel called The Other Side of the World.

For more information about Sullivan's work, as well as a New York Times review of Dear Blue Sky, visit marysullivan.net 

Sullivan will sign books at Park Street Books on Saturday, Sept. 29 at 4 p.m.