About the Author
I’m John B. Sullivan, a self-published author and retired musician based in Manchester, England. I write literary fiction specialising in time-slip, magical realism, and supernatural romance—stories where the impossible becomes tender, and the past and present breathe the same air.
As a lifelong storyteller who came to serious fiction writing later in life, I’ve always been captivated by the nature of time—how it shapes us, how we navigate it, and the mysteries it conceals. This fascination drives almost every story I write.
I’m also a composer and musician, and my background in music informs my fiction in subtle ways. Some of my stories begin as songs, or find their way into song form afterwards. The rhythm of language, the emotional architecture of a scene—these feel like musical decisions as much as literary ones.
I've published two books that readers of this site may enjoy: The Guide, is a collection of five interconnected stories about the quiet value of ordinary lives and small acts of kindness. The Impossible Distance, is a supernatural romance about two people connecting across the Atlantic through impossible means. Both are available wherever you prefer to buy ebooks.
A third book, Hello, Across the Silver Line — a novella about two women, a century apart, who find each other through an object in a Bath flat — will be available in my forthcoming ebook, Intervals due to be published on the 24th July 2026. You can read the opening on this site, accompanied by both song settings of its companion lyric. “Intervals” can be preordered here
About This Site
Temporal Scribe is a dedicated space for my time-slip and speculative fiction. Here you’ll find stories—from flash fiction to longer works—that explore those moments when time becomes permeable, when the past reaches forward or the present reaches back.
I believe story comes first. While I appreciate flash fiction’s elegant constraints, some tales need room to breathe. You’ll find both brief moments and longer explorations here.
Most stories on this site are free to read, though some will appear first as tasters for work I’m publishing elsewhere. I ask only that you don’t republish them without permission.
The Meditation below is not a recent piece of writing in spirit, even if it has been shaped and reshaped over the years. The feelings it tries to capture — the strangeness of time, its textures, the way it seems to thicken and thin as we pass through it — have been with me since I was thirteen or fourteen years old. I have never stopped feeling them. They are the reason I am drawn to write about time at all, and everything else on this site flows, in one way or another, from what is set down here.
Support
If these stories bring you joy and you feel moved to give back, please consider donating to a charity supporting those in need. I particularly recommend the Salvation Army, or making a direct contribution to someone experiencing homelessness in your community.
Alternatively, if you’d like to support this work directly, you can buy me a coffee on Ko-fi. Your support helps me keep writing and sharing time-slip fiction.
The best support you can give my work is to read it, share it with others who might appreciate it, and let me know what resonates with you.
