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Mary Ellen
Sullivan grew up on a farm outside Guelph, Ontario, and now lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Much of her writing is inspired by her love for her childhood farm. After
moving to Halifax
in 1995 she developed valued friendships with farmers and other people involved
with food and farming issues. As a community occupational therapist she was
honoured to hear people’s life stories in their homes.
Her poems
and prose have been published in Rural Delivery Magazine, and Rhubarb
— a publication of the Mennonite Literary Society, as well as online by
The Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada, and Canadian Jesuits
International. Her short story “Raising
Nellie” is included in the Nimbus 2014 anthology In the Company of
Animals: Stories of Extraordinary Encounters. She was the recipient
of the 2012 Elora Writers’ Festival writing competition for poetry and the 2014
Atlantic Writing Competition for poetry.
Mary Ellen
started Open Heart Farming, an annual collection of farm and
food-centric poems by Nova Scotia
poets in 2012 and writes the Open Heart Farming blog http://maryellensullivanblog.tumblr.com.
She has read at farmers markets and other locations in across Nova Scotia. She participates in the
Canadian Agriculture Literacy Week, speaking to elementary students about
agriculture in Nova Scotia.
Through these and her involvement in other food and farming initiatives, she
strives to share the voices of farmers and people involved in food justice
issues. She is grateful to the mentors she had as a child that have led her to
pursue these actions. And she loves Elizabeth Bishop’s writings.
Mary Ellen reading at Farmers' Market in Mahone Bay, N.S.
Open Heart
Farming is a spinoff of Open Heart Forgery, which is marking its fifth
anniversary this year.
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