be brave, be light, be you

Ireland Writing Retreat 2024

Join us on the Story Catalyst network on Mighty Networks to find out about all of our retreats.

Stories and Songs Writing Retreat in Italy - Sept. 10-16, 2024

An immersive and generative retreat for people who write—or want to write—stories that sound like songs and songs that tell stories.

Taos Writing Intensive

This retreat was an exquisite success in October 2023. So yes, we will have it again. Get on the interest list so you are the first to know!

Sink into your writing in a soul-stirring place that has inspired writers and artists and photographers for years. This intensive gives you time to write with mentored 1:1 support. It’s perfect if you want to finally finish a draft or go deep into revision.

Scotland Writing Immersion

We loved Scotland and all of our writers — so this retreat will come around again. Get on the interest list so you are the first to know.

Fifteen writers joined us in May 2023 for an exhilarating writing immersion in one of the world’s most writerly cities. This writing retreat is part immersion (you will generate amazing pages!) and part adventure, featuring mentored craft support and vision-making as well as “field trips” all through the writing landscape of Edinburgh, Scotland.

UNCOMMON HOURS 2023

The Monthly Live, Virtual and On Demand Class
for Designing and De-Stressifying the Writing Life

Catalyze your writing and meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Find out how potent the combination of contemplation, creative visualization and solidarity with a creative, supportive community can be. 

Join the Story Catalyst community

Join our intellectually rigorous and emotionally supportive writing community. Live the life written!

Be the first to hear about writing craft courses that will support you on your journey

Be the first to hear about our writing retreats in places like Scotland, Ireland, Taos, Tuscany or the Utah canyonlands

Be the first to get publication tips about how to prepare your work and find your perfect match

STORY CATALYST 2023 CLASSES

Our writing classes are cataclysmic!

We deliver classes live, virtual and on demand, and we wrap the classes in a dynamic writer community that is intellectually rigorous, vision-powered and emotionally supportive. 

All classes include a free membership in the Story Catalyst community on Mighty Networks.

MEET CAROLYN DAWN FLYNN

I am the story catalyst.

Story is my abiding love. Nothing makes me braver, more buoyant and more authentically myself than to be in pursuit of story.

Retreat, Then Advance: A Map for the Writing Life

Living the Life Written

You did not mean to live the life unwritten.

It’s time to write your book, the one that illuminates the path of the here, now and forever.

Whether your enduring path is fiction, memoir or personal development/spiritual nonfiction,
I can lead you to the truest sentence you know.

For years, I have been stealing fire from heaven. Which is to say, I’m a creative.

I’ve been looking for a way to get the word out more directly and more frequently so that I can guide more of you to the life of the written. I want to help you create work that feels targeted and joyful – work that captures significance and is not fleeting.

I’ve decided that the best way to engage with you on the big questions you have about writing would be in my new blog, “The Story Catalyst.” Click on through to learn more about how you can engage on the topics, but here’s a preview. 

The SoulFire, and Other Ways to Steal Fire from Heaven

About how to maintain that creative soulfire and not let the light go out

The Unwritten @ the Story Catalyst

Full of practical tip sheets about writing craft and the publishing world

The Story Catalyst authors

Stories from my author clients about how they got published.

Ms. Persephone

  • In which I give you a behind-the-scenes peek at the characters in my novel, Searching for Persephone;
  • In which I write about what it means to be creative, female and autonomous;
  • In which I remain, as ever, fiercely feminine and enthralled with the masculine mystique;
  • In which I write about contemporary themes from the ancient Greek myth of mothers and daughters, Demeters and Persephones, their passion and their grief

Vox + Luz

Which includes my Daily Light photo posts, as well as musing about finding your voice even when you are disrupted or silenced

Faith and Meaning

About the search for love, faith and greater truths in a time of flux

The Fallen and The Falling

A photo blog, which at its heart contains my father’s greatest life questions about abundance, impermanence and forgiveness. 

We are either The Fallen or The Falling.

Join me in the conversation

To be invited to the private Story Catalyst forum on Facebook, send me an email, using the email address associated with your Facebook account.

 

THE SOULFIRE

‘Just Beyond Yourself’: The Calling to Belong Again Took Me to Ireland

It’s nearing 10 o’clock at night on my first day in Ireland after being away for 36 years. When I last set foot on Irish soil, I was a young woman...

THE UNWRITTEN

How Retreats Give You Permission to Be a Writer

In this guest blog post, we hear from Jonatha Kottler, co-facilitator of the 2020 Ireland Writing Retreat along the Wild Atlantic Way, to be held...

THE STORY CATALYST AUTHORS

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VOX + LUZ

The Essence of You: Be Wild, Be Daring, Don’t Mind

I want to be five years old again. I want to be this little girl who doesn’t wonder what people think of her. She is a little wild and a wee bit...

MS. PERSEPHONE

Testament of Love

What do you believe about love? Read Isabel’s Testament of Love, hard-earned wisdom embedded with the truth of lived experience, which comes about one-third of the way into my novel, “Searching for Persephone.” What do you know now that you didn’t know then?

THE FALLEN
& THE FALLING

Love Heals: The Grief Project

          Time doesn't heal. Love heals. When you lose someone, the people around you often don't know what to say. "Time...

FAITH &
MEANING

Atomic creativity: What Georgia O’Keeffe, Robert Oppenheimer and a fidelity to a life of contemplation taught me about inspiration

As creatives, we can draw inspiration from imagining ourselves in a soul-stirring setting. An expansive place that opens our minds to new horizons,...