Interview With Author Chip Sullivan & Elizabeth Bolts
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I am a landscape architect who has always been fascinated by how one can see and act in the world as both an artist and an engineer/scientist; I feel lucky to have found a profession that combines both ways of knowing. I have a BS in Human Ecology from SUNY Oneonta and an MLA from UC Berkeley; I am proud to have been a MacDowell fellow.
I teach freehand and technical drawing, design history, and site design at the University of California, Davis, and maintain an art-based landscape design practice founded on promoting environmental consciousness and ecological narratives. I believe that design is storytelling, and I see a strong connection between writing and the design process, as both create worlds and shape spaces for others to experience and inhabit.
I have written articles for various scholarly publications, and have co-authored two books with my partner Chip Sullivan—Illustrated History of Landscape Design (Wiley, 2010), and Wisdom of Place: A Guide to Recovering the Sacred Origins of Landscape (ORO Editions, 2024). We recently published a tarot deck, Wisdom of Place: Elemental Landscapes (ORO Editions, 2025), based on the illustrations in our book.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Wisdom of Place: A Guide to Recovering the Sacred Origins of Landscape was inspired by our honest belief in the necessity for humans to honor and revere the natural world and to engage more consciously with their environment. Science has proven that access to nature has enormous physical and psychological benefits, and at this moment in time, as wildfires rage, sea levels rise, species extinctions intensify, and a pandemic has shaken the world, human survival depends on understanding the inherent wisdom of place—an intelligence that our ancient ancestors abided by intuitively. Our book examines how people throughout time and space have shaped their spaces according to their beliefs in the magic and mystery of the earth and their knowledge of the sacred language of nature. Perhaps if we believed the river was our mother, we’d be more likely to protect and cherish it.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I literally have to unclutter my mind by uncluttering my workspace before I sit down to write. I need an order. When I’m stuck and having a hard time finding words, I get easily distracted and jump up to dust the baseboards or take out the compost. I also drink an enormous quantity of tea with obscene amounts of honey in it.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I first became aware of the beauty and power of language when I was reading Faulkner in college. His incredible skill at manipulating words, beyond just communicating a story, was eye-opening for me. I also devoured all of Doris Lessing’s books in my early years. I blame both for my addiction to wordsmithing. I once dated someone studying Russian literature and went through a phase of reading Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. I recently read the MaddAddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood and couldn’t put it down. Still with me. I also love the poems of Czeslaw Milosz, Wallace Stevens, and Jorie Graham. Word pictures enchant me.
What are you working on now?
Right now, Chip and I are trying to figure out the form and content of the last and final companion to Wisdom of Place. We want to dive deeper into the geography behind the knowledge—how the specificity of place influences folklore and an ethics of conservation. We want to keep it visual and mystical, yet informative and empowering. Will it be an atlas or a travel guide? It’s almost verging on fiction. Will we end up telling a different kind of story of the journey of the heroine?
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
The best website to find out more about our book is https://www.thewisdomofplace.com/
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Persevere. If it’s important to you, put in the work. And write authentically. Find your voice. At least for the time being, you are not a robot.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
One of my colleagues who teaches in the Writing Program would say, “Don’t get it right, get it written.” That was really helpful advice in getting started.
What are you reading now?
I’m finally reading The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. It’s the 40th anniversary of its publication, and I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to discover this absolute treasure. I’m totally loving every page. She is brilliant.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Retirement! Just kidding. It’s really stressful to put your work out there, and I get anxious about it. Other writers are a lot more driven than me. I like to have a discrete task or prompt so I can feel a sense of accomplishment when I complete it.
My next project has been simmering in the back of my mind for quite a while. I would like to write a textbook for beginning design students that introduces the universal principles and elements of spatial design.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Ha! Definitely a Survivor’s Guide to Desert Islands. I would want to have with me something very dense and challenging to get through, something that would provoke my imagination. Maybe Shakespeare, Virgil, or Joyce, as well as something entertaining from a good storyteller like Nabokov, Eco, or Verne. I suppose a trashy romance wouldn’t be a bad idea if I were alone on the island!
Author Websites and Profiles
Chip Sullivan & Elizabeth Bolts Website
Chip Sullivan & Elizabeth Bolts Amazon Profile
Chip Sullivan & Elizabeth Bolts’s Social Media Links
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