January Newsletter

Where are you from, what do you do, and fun fact about yourself!

I am a memoirist, novelist and essayist; the author of the memoir Boundless and seven books of nonfiction. Boundless was longlisted for the 2021 Mslexia International Memoir Prize and the 2022 First Pages Prize. My work has been published in Fourth Genre, Under the Gum Tree, Arts and Letters, The Colorado Sun, The Tampa Review, The Whitefish Review (Montana Prize for Fiction), Albuquerque Journal, Sage Magazine, Albuquerque the Magazine and Wilde Frauen.

I was the longtime editor of a life-giving magazine called Sage. In my TEDx Women talk, “Tell a Better Story, Live a Better Life,” I have proudly inspired countless others to live their sacred yes—even in a world that may split open, as the writer Muriel Rukeyser once famously said, if one woman spoke the truth. Currently I am a writing coach and developmental editor.

On a more personal level I am a single mother of Ukrainian-Irish-American twins. I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I am a hiker and a pilgrim and a desert dweller who is an appreciator of horizons.

How did you become a memoirist?

My life plan was to become a novelist, but at 17, reality landed like a massive black grand piano on my head, and I realized I needed a writing career that would pay a bit better. I noticed that there were these huge manufacturing plants called presses attached to these buildings that had newsrooms, and they needed words, lots of them! So I double-majored in journalism and English, intending to be a journalist for a little while, then become a novelist. I like to say I have three MFAs in Writing because I pursued a creative writing degree first at the University of Kentucky, when I returned to fiction at age 26 and had the privilege of being mentored by National Book Award-winning author Percival Everett (James, 2024) and poet James Baker Hall.

My newspaper career plucked me out of Kentucky and took me to Arizona, where once again, as soon as I could lift my head up from the frantic pace of daily journalism, I entered the Arizona State University creative writing program, where (lucky me!) I worked with master short story writer and novelist Ron Carlson. That journalism career catapulted me to another job, where I moved to Albuquerque to be in senior management, then editor-in-chief of Sage magazine, and then it was time to try again.

In 2008, at the age of 48, I realized that the dream was not going away. I was accepted into the Sena Jeter Naslund-Karen Mann School of Writing into the Spalding MFA in Writing program in fiction and creative nonfiction. It was still my intention to be a novelist, but Spalding asked me if I would like to do creative nonfiction my first year, and that was the seed of becoming a memoirist. What I told myself at the time was, “This will be easy! I know how to tell true stories because I’m a journalist. I know how to tell literary stories because I’m a fiction writer.” Little did I know… But oh how wonderful to start on that journey!

I believe memoir and all of its iterations and forms is the most vibrant and evolving form in the literary world. I love seeing what is emerging hybrid memoir – researched memoir, oral history and memoir, epistolary memoir. I am working on a second memoir now, and it has epistolary bits woven into the narrative.

I call myself a reluctant memoirist, but it seems I keep getting pregnant with memoirs.

I’d love to know the story behind your current project—your second memoir!

I’m writing Dear Grace, another memoir, that I describe as Kate Bowler’s Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I Love meets the poet Maggie Smith’s You Could Make This Place Beautiful.

I look at the DNA of femininity through the lens of a year with breast cancer, tapping into my women ancestors for wisdom about marriage, childbirth and motherhood—and all the glorious things the female body can hold and become. I go way, way beyond the typical illness narrative to examine why a woman must always make a careful choice with marriage (my engagement comes to a shattering end during treatment), and then I examine what grace truly is through letters to my daughter Grace and my grandmother Grace. I explore these themes through my Irish and Scottish ancestral line by traveling to those countries, arriving in the end to my Cherokee ancestor in Kentucky, the one I call “The Girl with the Rainbow Hair.”

What does your writing process look like? What consistently works well for you?

Ideas are like fish—best when fresh! So I have a morning writing practice that catches everything that comes in.

If I need a prompt, it's "What's on my mind today?" I never have writer’s block. And I wish writers would stop telling themselves that their profession is somehow subject to this affliction. Do surgeons ever have surgeon’s block? If a writer feels blocked, she’s doing the blocking. That’s coming from within. On some level, the writer agrees with all the other things people say about writing, creating and getting published. Don’t agree with them. The good news is that if you’re doing the blocking, you can do the unblocking. The best thing a writer can do is cultivate a practice of mindfulness so she can transcend the incessant chatter of the mind, which is filled with self-doubt and, as Jackson Browne famously wrote, “Among the thoughts that crowd your mind, there won’t be many that ever really matter.” Meditate so you can find the thoughts that matter and discover your own precious and beautiful mind. Meditate so you can be original. Meditate so you can be calm when you take on the tough stuff. In my meditation practice, one of my mantras is “Let the mind drop into the heart.” People who write with a clear, untethered mind, an open heart and an awakened body are writers who write words that matter. For more on this: Michael A. Singer’s “The Untethered Soul” is wisdom for the moment we’re living in now.

My writing practice is 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 25 minutes of free writing. I develop my own prompts. I have perfected the writer's retreat at home, a practice that goes from Thursday evenings to Monday mornings. But Thursday is devoted to "literature therapy" -- I believe in reading like a writer. I believe in making the transition from your chatty, distracted highly functional mind back into the literary realm. I fill up my wordstream with other literary writers' words. I slow myself down to their sharp observational presence to the world. Then I write.

Your most recent work, your memoir BOUNDLESS, was published December 21, 2024. Tell me your heart behind it. What inspired it?

The true origin of my inspiration to write about my life as a single mother of twins comes in a straight line from Anne Lamott’s Operating Instructions. It’s as if Anne Lamott’s Grace (Eventually) met up with Operating Instructions and decided to write about the opposite end of motherhood—the empty nest. I say that Boundless is the story of one woman’s urgent beckoning to become someone more authentically herself. It is infused with the feral hunger of Untamed by Glennon Doyle or Wild by Cheryl Strayed and laced with the poetic horizons of David Whyte and John O’Donohue.

Though my walking pilgrimage in Ireland with the poet David Whyte occurs after the events of Boundless, one year later, his take on placing oneself in the lineage of your ancestors and your future descendants was a breakthrough for me—a healing moment for the empty nest angst that has propelled me forward the past seven years. That is why I requested permission from David to use his poem, “Just Beyond Yourself” as the epigraph. So thrilled he said yes!

Another strong influence that flows through Boundless are the spiritual teachings of Father Richard Rohr, founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, and the faculty of The Living School. You’ll find a bit of Thomas Merton and Julian of Norwich in there! I see Boundless as one woman’s story about how can shed the False Self and trust that you can do the True Self no harm.

BOUNDLESS

When you have become no one, how do you become someone again?

Carolyn Dawn Flynn thought she had the answer. As an author, magazine journalist, and single mother of twins, she was sure of her path. But with her twins eagerly casting their college choices to anywhere-but-here, and the newspaper industry in a death spiral, her life was on a collision course with an uncertain future. Clearly, it was time for a road trip. Flynn takes a media job two thousand miles away, dismantles the twins’ childhood home, and bids a (merciful!) farewell to the mom-van. She moves from the high desert mesa of New Mexico to the healing waters of Saratoga Springs, New York. Within weeks, the dream unravels, leaving Flynn searching for a way to find home—or perhaps create a new home entirely. In BOUNDLESS, Flynn reimagines the empty nest, turning her keen insight and signature poetic voice to the deeper questions about the stages of women’s lives. Set at the intersection of youthful coming-of-age and the vanishing horizon of middle age, BOUNDLESS offers powerful questions about what it means to become—and ultimately provides a road map for recovering emotional agility.

Amazon | https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DMSW1GCV 

Barnes & Noble | https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/boundless-carolyn-dawn-flynn/1146544863;jsessionid=A69B91A4F092F577341B01EBAD87DF6C.prodny_store02-atgap06?ean=9798891324824 

Bookshop | https://bookshop.org/p/books/boundless-carolyn-dawn-flynn/22033748?ean=9798891324824 

Atmosphere Press | https://atmospherepress.com/books/boundless-by-carolyn-dawn-flynn/ 

Tertulia | https://tertulia.com/book/boundless-carolyn-dawn-flynn/9798891324824 

Good Reads | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/221111842-boundless?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=Qgtt8nabBi&rank=1

You are a book coach and developmental editor. Why did you take on these roles in addition to being a writer? What's your passion and heart behind them? Why should people consider using a book coach and/or developmental editor?

During my journalism career, I was a mentor to many writers, and I became known for talent development. After I published seven spiritual self-help nonfiction books, people wanted me to help them do that. So it was a natural step to be a book coach and developmental editor. My bread-and-butter client work is moving a write from Idea to Outline, then Chapter Draft Support, then creating the path to publication with a book proposal. The book proposal marries my superpower skill set -- developing a hook, outline, structure and voice for the voice; and strategizing a media presence and building an author platform.

When I was editor of Sage magazine, I wasn't just an editor, I was an ambassador, the face of the brand. I created conversations. It was my job to find the most refined and relevant hooks to stories. That naturally translated to helping people get their books out into the world. I am so enriched by my clients -- I love their ingenuity and passion. Every time we dial in a hook or hone an outline, I'm participating in something meaningful -- helping them get their vision out of the drawer of the mind and into real pages in the real world. A book coach or developmental editor can cut years off the process. My main role is to elevate my clients -- help them be bold, help them know they have a drop of gold. Writing a book is not a solitary act -- it's a collaborative act. I help them hold the vision -- and keep that conversation with the reader alive on the page.