About This Publication

Welcome to Welcome to Sullyville. My name is Dan O'Sullivan. I am a writer based in Los Angeles. I am so happy and flattered you are here.

Welcome to Sullyville is about one subject: life in the gilded American underworld, the morass of crime, corruption, poverty, greed, and violence which knows no demarcation between the "legitimate" and "illegal" spheres of life. Crime is endemic in America, just not in the way it's usually defined; the big money is earned in entirely legal rackets, sucking profits out of a country left spiritually, physically, and financially bankrupt. All of Welcome to Sullyville's published articles–from reported journalism about the Manson Family and Los Angeles police corruption, to appreciations of overlooked film noir, to essays about finding fulfillment in Zen gardens and old sandwich shops–is about either failing or attempting to overcome this grim state of affairs.

I started Welcome to Sullyville on the newsletter platform Substack a few years back, and now I'm on Ghost, because it's cool to think about ghosts. Welcome to Sullyville is my little writing shack, and over the past few years, I've been penning essays about everything on my mind: film noir, cherry blossoms, Ebenezer Scrooge, Zen Buddhism, and more darkly, the American far right fringe. With this beautiful relaunched version, made possible under the auspices of Ghost–a technically-stunning platform with a non-profit credo–I am so proud to be sharing even more writing with you every week.

While all my old Substack essays have been migrated to the archives here, what I am really excited about is the future. Welcome to Sullyville is my home, the proving ground for me as a writer, given full independence. From reported journalism about the Manson Family or LAPD corruption, to appreciations of overlooked hard-boiled schlock, to the poetry of my favorite Japanese monks, Welcome to Sullyville is, for better or worse, a reflection of its author.

I am so glad you are here. If you want to read my writing every week, you can sign up to receive each post via email. And if you really want to support me and my writing, and to receive all the posts, including those premium paywalled posts before everyone else sees them, you can become a paying subscriber. Times are tough, and I've been on the "free oatmeal at work" diet before, so the idea I get paid to write by you humbles me deeply. Your subscriptions, free and paid, means more to me than I can express, and I hope you'll enjoy what I write.