William L. Sullivan is the author of seventeen books and numerous articles about Oregon, including a "Oregon Trails" feature column for the Eugene
Register-Guard and the Salem
Statesman-Journal. A fifth-generation Oregonian, Sullivan began hiking at the age of five and has been exploring new trails ever since. After studying at Deep Springs College in the California desert, receiving an English degree from Cornell University, and studying linguistics at Germany's Heidelberg University, he earned an M.A. in German literature from the University of Oregon. He has been happily married to the
artist Janell Sorensen for nearly 40 years.
Sullivan's hobbies include backcountry ski touring, playing the pipe organ, reading foreign language novels, and promoting libraries. He helped with the campaign to build Eugene's new library, served on the Oregon State Library Board, and is president of the
Lane Library League, a citizen group with the goal of extending library service to the 80,000 people in Lane County who currently lack service. He is a past president of the
Round Table Club of Eugene. He also organizes three author events in Eugene each year -- the Oregon Authors Table at the Art & the Vineyard Festival on the 4th of July weekend, the Oregon Authors Table at the Lane County Fair in mid August, and the
Authors & Artists Fair, a fundraiser for the Lane Library League at the Lane County Fairgrounds on the first Saturday in December.
He and his wife
Janell Sorensen live in Eugene, but they spend summers in a
log cabin (1-minute video) they built by hand on a roadless stretch of a remote river in Oregon's Coast Range.
In 1985 Sullivan set out to investigate Oregon's wilderness on a 1,361-mile solo backpacking trek from the state's westernmost shore at Cape Blanco to Oregon's easternmost point in Hells Canyon. His journal of that two-month adventure, published as
Listening for Coyote (1-minute video), was chosen in by the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission in 2005 as one of the 100 most significant books in Oregon's history.
Sullivan's most colorful guidebook is
Oregon Trips and Trails (1-minute video), a guide to the state's most beautiful places, illustrated with 800 color maps and photographs. The book has details for visiting 100 star destinations worth a journey, 65 hiking trails, and 250 places to stay -- including campgrounds, bed & breakfast inns, and quaint hotels.
The book
Oregon's Greatest Natural Disasters (1-minute video) is an entertaining and provocative examination of the floods, fires, earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions that have affected people in Oregon during the past 13,000 years. Sullivan shows that these events are actually part of larger natural cycles -- some more regular than others. Understanding the cycles can help reduce damage in the future. The final chapter in the book is fictional, set 12 years in the future when a massive earthquake and tsunami devastate the Oregon Coast.
Sullivan's other books include
Hiking Oregon's History (1-minute video), the
Atlas of Oregon Wilderness, and a popular series of 100 Hikes/guidebooks to the regions of Oregon. Titles in that series include
100 Hikes in Northwest Oregon & SW Washington (1-minute video),
100 Hikes in the Central Oregon Cascades (1-minute video),
100 Hikes in Southern Oregon,
100 Hikes/Travel Guide: Eastern Oregon (1-minute video), and
100 Hikes/Travel Guide: Oregon Coast & Coast Range. Bill has also co-authored two college computer textbooks, Desktop Publishing and The New Computer User, and he edited and published two books written by his father, the late Salem newspaper editor J. Wesley Sullivan:
Jam on the Ceiling and
To Elsie With Love.
Sullivan's second novel is a light mystery entitled
The Case of Einstein's Violin (1-minute video). In the book, an Oregon schoolteacher sells Einstein's violin case on eBay and finds herself pursued through Europe by international spies in search of a missing Einstein formula for quantum gravity. Sullivan's 2007 author tour paired the book with a slide show on hiking in Europe. that featured trails used as settings in the novel.
Sullivan's first novel,
A Deeper Wild (1-minute video), is based on the true adventures of Joaquin Miller, the swashbuckling Oregon Country gold miner, editor, pony express rider, horse thief, and county judge who won international renown in 1872 as the "Poet of the Sierras."
Sullivan's memoir,
Cabin Fever: Notes From a Part-Time Pioneer (1-minute video), tells the humorous and dramatic story of the 25 summers that he and his wife spent building a log cabin by hand on a roadless tract along a remote river in Oregon's Coast Range.
With the completion of the popular 5-book series of "100 Hikes" guides to Oregon's trails Sullivan has hiked nearly every public trail in Oregon. Now he is rehiking many of those trails, keeping his guidebooks up to date. Each new edition features a dozen new trails, updated information on museums and rental cabins, and a 16-page color section that includes a wildflower identification guide. All of his "100 Hikes" books are updated every year or two to keep pace with changes due to storm damage, fires, construction, and changing fee systems.
New in 2010 were three books -- a new third edition of
100 Hikes in Southern Oregon (1-minute video), as well as a guide to the
Trails of Crater Lake and Oregon Caves (in partnership with the Crater Lake Natural History Association), and
The Ship in the Hill, a historical novel based on the true story of the excavation of a Viking longship on a Norwegian farm in 1904. Accompanying the new guidebooks are slide shows on "
New Hikes in Southern Oregon" and "Visiting Viking Sites in Scandinavia."
New for April 2011 was
Oregon Favorites: Trails and Tales. Based on 20 years of outdoor columns Sullivan has written for Eugene newspapers, the book features favorite hikes and adventures for each month of the year. The book includes stories about history, geology, and people along the way. His slide show, "
Favorite Oregon Hikes & Adventures", covers highlights from the book.
