8 Questions for... Cici Sullivan

All The King's Men

Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

Cici Sullivan

is the writer of All The King’s Men, a literary journal devoted to the true stories of dating, romance, love, and heartbreak. She aims to write about the highs and lows of intimate relationships with an aching honesty and depth, amplified by her indefatigably hopeful heart and a yearning for magic. She explores the often challenging, sometimes painful, occasionally embarrassing themes of looking for love in a way that balances her own innocence and the eclipsing jadedness that is a symptom of being a hopeless romantic in the harsh, transactional culture of New York City. Cici is drawn to the more Venusian aspects of life - love and beauty and art and music - and creates a felt experience for her readers that reflects and inspires that.

Image credit: Cabell Molina

1. Why Substack?

Shortly before my 40th birthday, I realized I had no idea who I was. I’d done my time in Corporate America, and then spent about twelve years as an entrepreneur where I built and destroyed several businesses. After a painful divorce and a disastrous seven year stretch of dating, I finally admitted I was lost, and probably always had been. So I packed up my life and travelled the world, looking for adventure and answers. When covid finally forced me back to the states, I was no closer to myself than I was when I first left. I moved to NYC and spiralled out in my own - and the collective - nothingness.

In March of 2024, I went through an incredibly devastating breakup. For two years, I had filled all of my emptiness with a man who ultimately betrayed my trust and vulnerability. The fallout was pretty dark. It was a true rock bottom moment for me - one I didn’t actually want to survive.

At the urging of my best friend, I started a Substack. I needed to make myself the main character of my own stories and reclaim (or perhaps discover?) my voice. I’ve always been a writer, just not one who actually wrote. Writing was a childhood dream of mine, but I chose the “safe” options over what had always been calling me.

And so now here I am. Doing what I always should have been doing, and actually knowing who I am while doing it. Writing on Substack is everything I needed, and so much more.

2. How long did it take you to find your groove?

Since I started my Substack, I’ve pretty much always had my groove. I knew that if I wanted to write honestly and well, I was going to have to write about the thing I was most wounded in and scared to write about: love and relationships, and the often strange and cartoonish ways I have pursued them. It is messy, painful, dirty work that requires my ability and willingness to touch a certain emotional register. But lately, there have been times that I just don’t want to feel those feelings. They are sometimes too big and too dangerous, and I feel too tired or frightened to bring myself back inside those experiences, because what if I don’t come out? I feel like I’ve lost my groove a bit, but that might just be a symptom of having lost my nerve.

I know what I’m writing and how I want to write it, but I haven’t yet mastered the grit necessary to consistently write with the depth that I want to write with. That’s the real groove I am looking to find.

3. How has it changed you?

I am an incredibly private person, and although I write with a nom de plume, I have had to get comfortable with people knowing the part of my life that I would otherwise absolutely keep secret. I’ve had to learn to stand firmly in the truth (my family reads my writing and I imagine that is often traumatic for them, but I won’t allow myself to edit what is true for their comfort). I’ve had some very difficult conversations with my grandmother, but instead of finding judgment and rejection, I’ve found more love and acceptance. The realization that I am loved even though I am not perfect has been profoundly transformative.

I am also no longer haunted by shame the way I used to be. Because Substack is a community, I’ve learned that I am not a cursed woman. I’m not even alone in some of the most absurd and traumatizing situations I’ve found myself in. My experiences are everyone’s experiences, even though the details differ. This has been a beautiful learning for me, and it has emboldened me in my personal life to be a little less private, to take up a little more space, and to stop apologizing so much for the horrifying ordeal of being human.

And, maybe most importantly, I have something that defines me as me. Something that I care about enough to not give up if someone wants me to, or if it becomes inconvenient to life’s chaos and demands.

4. What mistakes have you made?

Even though I’m very hard on myself, I don’t technically believe in mistakes. Everything I have done or not done in life and on Substack has taught me something, so how could it ever be a mistake?

That said, a note of mine went viral and I was very affected by some of the trolling I received. It definitely threw me off my game, and I wish I had been more grounded about it all. Building a platform means being able to sustain having a platform, and attention, criticism and holding space for others experiences of you is a part of that.

5. To pay or not to pay?

I have a paid option available, but I don’t paywall anything. At first I thought I would reserve explicit details for the paywall, but I have since decided to not write overly explicit details (I am a lady, after all). I would love for people to be inspired enough by my work to want to support it, but for now I am happy sharing my work whether there is a financial exchange or not.

6. What artistic and technical choices have you made?

I have tried to focus on prose with my storytelling. While my genre is non-fiction, I want it to read like a beautiful, well-written novel. There are a lot of people writing about their failed dating and relationship lives, but I want my writing to open the reader to a deeply felt experience. I want to move people with both my storytelling and my writing.

7. What’s been the effect on your writing?

I have a photographic and phonographic memory (it’s as awful as it sounds), so everything I write - including dialogue - is accurate (to my interpretation of events, of course). I could easily phone it in and simply recount events - which is especially tempting when I don’t want to feel the feels - but I am committed to a more literary, prose-focused experience. So I’m constantly redirecting myself back to that as my North Star.

8. In it for the long haul?

I certainly hope so.

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Cici Sullivan