About
Matthew Sullivan (he/him) is the author of the novel Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, which was an IndieNext pick, a Barnes & Noble Discover Pick, a GoodReads Choice Award finalist, and winner of the Colorado Book Award. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Daily Beast, The Spokesman-Review, Sou'wester and elsewhere, and his stories have been awarded the Florida Review Editor's Prize and the Robert Olen Butler Fiction Prize. He grew up in a family of eight raucous kids in Aurora, Colorado, and received his B.A. from the University of San Francisco and his M.F.A. from the University of Idaho. After working as a bookseller at Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver and at Brookline Booksmith in Boston, he spent 20 years as a tenured instructor teaching writing, literature and film at a rural HSI community college in the high desert of central Washington State. He is married to a librarian, Libby, and now lives in Anacortes, WA, along the Salish Sea. His new stand-alone novel, Midnight in Soap Lake, is forthcoming from Harper Collins/Hanover Square Press.
Featured Work
Midnight at the Bright ideas Bookstore
When a bookshop patron dies by suicide, his favorite store clerk must unravel the puzzle he left behind in this "shocking, charming, thrilling" (Associated Press) and award-winning debut novel.
Lydia Smith lives her life hiding in plain sight. A clerk at the Bright Ideas bookstore, she leads a meticulously ordered existence among her beloved books, eccentric colleagues, and the BookFrogs—the lost and lonely regulars who spend every day browsing the overwhelmed stacks.
But when a young BookFrog, Joey Molina, hangs himself in one of the upper rooms of the store, Lydia’s life comes unglued. Inside one of Joey’s pockets is a photograph of Lydia as a little girl. And when she flips through some of his books, she finds them defaced in ways both disturbing and inexplicable. They reveal the psyche of a young man on the verge of an emotional reckoning. The more she puzzles over them, the more they seem to contain a hidden message for her about his final days. What did Joey know? And what does it have to do with Lydia?
With "oddball characters and [a] layered plot" (Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review), Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is “a smart, twisty crime novel set in a world that booklovers will adore” (Jess Walter, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins).
Other Works
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Midnight in Soap Lake
April 2025
Awards and Recognition
- • An IndieBound Indie Next pick and Indie Bookstore Bestseller. • A Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick. • Winner of the Colorado Book Award, General Fiction. • Goodreads' Debut Author of the Month and Choice Award for Debut Novel, Final Round • A Library-Reads pick. • Tattered Cover Book Store's Very Impressive Book pick. • SUSPENSE Magazine's Best Books of the Year Award, Debut Novel • Seattle Public Library's Top Ten Novels of the Year • Reader's Advisory Board/ALA Year's Best Genre Fiction, Mystery, shortlist.