Paul Sullivan grew up learning to love nature, travel, and books. He was born in Trenton, New Jersey, but he says:

“I spent the best years of my boyhood in Tennessee. My father and I did a lot of hunting and fishing and traveling through the South. Those years, until I was about fourteen, were very free years. We camped by lakes or rivers or went off to see what was over the next mountain. My father had a great love of travel, learning, and books, and I took them away with me. The greatest gift he gave me was a library card. I learned about Hemingway and Jack London. And today my own books are in that same town library.”

In the 1980s, Sullivan traveled to South America, Central America, Europe, Africa, and the Arctic. He kept notes and wrote about his experiences. He bases his stories on places he has been and things he has seen and learned. He says: 

“I try to give readers some value and write books that can be read from age eight to eighty and still be enjoyed. The greatest compliment a person often gives me after reading one of my books is simply, ‘I never saw it that way,’ or, ‘I learned something.’”

Most of Sullivan’s novels combine history and the natural world.