Description
“The Living Wills” is a story about a split-second decision made 30 years ago and the ripple effects it caused. Can the man who made that decision and the people he affected maneuver their way through a world of baristas and Army veterans, bowling teams and exploding port-a-potties, cartoon pirates and young love, to find the strength to heal before it’s too late?
Brendan Sullivan and Rick Kaempfer created “The Living Wills” as an experiment in pure collaborative creativity. Through improvisation, brainstorming mind mapping and other ideation techniques, they created the three interweaving story lines of “The Living Wills” together, before writing the individual chapters alone. Both men wrote, edited, and improved portions of all three story lines. The result is a truly collaborative novel in every sense of the word.
Press & Media
Chicago Tribune video interview with Brendan Sullivan & Rick Kaempfer
WGN Radio (Sports Night), Part One
Brendan Sullivan is a creativity coach, helping organizational teams, leaders and individuals to realize their potential to be creative, innovative and collaborative. His clients include Kellogg’s, PepsiCo, Harley-Davidson and many others. He is a renowned keynote speaker on the topic of collaborative creativity. 
Rick Kaempfer was the executive producer of John Landecker’s show on WJMK radio in the 90s and 00s, and the Steve & Garry show at WLUP in the 1980s before that. He has since written “The Radio Producer’s Handbook” (with John Swanson, Allworth Press 2004), a satirical novel about the broadcasting business called “$everance” (ENC Press, 2007), and another novel with Brendan Sullivan called “The Living Wills” (Eckhartz Press, 2011).