be brave, be light, be you
BOUNDLESS
A new memoir from acclaimed author and journalist Carolyn Dawn Flynn
When you have become no one, how do you become someone again?
AUTHOR CAROLYN DAWN FLYNN
A portion of the price goes to support a local independent bookstore of your choice.
Memoirist, novelist and essayist Carolyn Dawn Flynn is 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.
Her novel Searching for Persephone, shortlisted for the Elixir Press First Novel Prize, is excerpted in The Write Launch. Her 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.
She is a single mother of Ukrainian-Irish-American twins and was the longtime editor of a life-giving magazine called Sage. In her TEDx Women talk, “Tell a Better Story, Live a Better Life,” she has 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.
She is a 2012 graduate of the Naslund-Mann Spalding MFA in Writing program and a native of Lexington, Kentucky, where she grew up near Red River Gorge. She now lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she is a hiker and a pilgrim and a desert dweller who is an appreciator of horizons.
READ ABOUT BOUNDLESS ON MY SUBSTACK
THE STORY CATALYST
IDEA-TO-OUTLINE BOOK COACHING | CHAPTER DRAFT SUPPORT | DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING
PUBLICATION CONSULTING | BOOK PROPOSAL CONSULTING | UNCOMMON HOURS COACHING
JOIN OUR WRITER COMMUNITY on MIGHTY NETWORKS. IT’S FREE!
We are offering a warm and welcoming community of writers to gather online.
Here you’ll find resources to keep you on track and other authentic, talented writers who want to help you on your journey.
Our promise: We are intellectually rigorous and emotionally supportive.
You’ll gain in talent, vision and skill, all while feeling supported.
STORIES + SONGS WRITING RETREAT
SEPT. 22-26, 2025
MONTANA/YELLOWSTONE
ABOUT OUR WRITING RETREATS
Escape to a soul-stirring place,
rest deeply in inspiration
and surround yourself with support
that will sustain you long after the retreat concludes.
Story Catalyst retreats stand out because you WILL write!
Whether you are at the absolute beginning of a writing project or deep in the confusion of revision,
you’ll get away, generate pages and come away with breakthroughs.
Our retreats are unforgettable because they are intellectually rigorous and emotionally supportive.
We believe in equipping you with vision and skill so you can focus with confidence and clarity on your project.
This is the most warm-hearted community you’ll ever know.
SOME PLACES WE’VE BEEN
IRELAND | TAOS, NEW MEXICO | TUSCANY IN ITALY
SCOTLAND | CALIFORNIA SIERRAS | KENTUCKY’S BOURBON TRAIL | UTAH CANYONLANDS
IRELAND
2019
2022
2024
TAOS
NEW MEXICO
2023
TUSCANY
ITALY
STORIES AND SONGS
2024
UTAH
CANYONLANDS
2018
EDINBURGH,
SCOTLAND
2023
SOME PLACES WE MAY GO
IN THE FUTURE
IRELAND | TAOS, NEW MEXICO | MONTANA NEAR YELLOWSTONE
TUSCANY IN ITALY | ICELAND | UTAH CANYONLANDS | NEW ZEALAND
WELCOME TO
THE STORY CATALYST BLOG
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
THE UNWRITTEN
THE STORY CATALYST AUTHORS
Author spotlight: David Sorensen
David Sorensen’s memoir Between Two Worlds: My Life as a Child of Deaf Adults, published June 28, 2019, with his publisher of choice—Gallaudet Press, which is part of Gallaudet University, the nation’s premier university for the education of the deaf or hard of...