Cal Flyn is a Scottish author and journalist.

Early life

Flyn was born in

Inverness Inverness (; ; from the , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness") is a city in the Scottish Highlands, having been granted city status in 2000. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highland ...

, Scotland. She attended Charleston Academy, a state secondary school. As a child, she underwent orthopedic surgery to correct

proximal femoral focal deficiency Proximal femoral focal deficiency (PFFD), also known as congenital femoral deficiency (CFD), is a rare, non-hereditary birth defect that affects the pelvis, particularly the hip bone, and the proximal femur. The disorder may affect one side or bo ...

affecting the left leg. Flyn holds an MA in experimental psychology from

Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford Lady Margaret Hall (LMH) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, located on a bank of the River Cherwell at Norham Gardens in north Oxford and adjacent to the University Parks. The ...

, and a NCTJ certificate in newspaper journalism from

Lambeth College South Bank Colleges is a further education college in the London Borough of Lambeth. It was formed in 1992, initially as Lambeth College, from three former institutions – Vauxhall College of Building and Further Education, Brixton College of Fur ...

Career

After graduation, Flyn worked as a reporter for ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'' and ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

''. She left her job in 2012 to work at a dog-sledding kennels in

Finnish Lapland Lapland is the largest and northernmost Regions of Finland, region of Finland. The 21 municipalities in the region cooperate in a Regional Council. Lapland borders the Finnish region of North Ostrobothnia in the south. It also borders the Gul ...

. Flyn is the deputy editor of the literary recommendations website Five Books She was made a MacDowell fellow in 2019. In 2022, she was declared 'Young Writer of the Year' by ''The Sunday Times''. She is the author of

nonfiction Non-fiction (or nonfiction) is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to convey information only about the real world, rather than being grounded in imagination. Non-fiction typically aims to present topics objectively ...

books ''Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape'' (2022) and ''Thicker Than Water: History, Secrets, and Guilt'' (2016), and has published essays and articles in ''

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story's supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make ...

'', ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', The ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'', ''

The Sunday Times Magazine ''The Sunday Times Magazine'' is a magazine included with ''The Sunday Times''. In 1962 it became the first colour supplement to be published as a supplement to a UK newspaper, and its arrival "broke the mould of weekend newspaper publishing". ...

'', and other publications.

Works

Her first book, ''Thicker Than Water'', tells the story of a distant relative, Angus McMillan, who is believed to have been one of the ringleaders of the

Gippsland massacres The Gippsland massacres were a series of mass murders of Gunai Kurnai people, an Aboriginal Australian people living in East Gippsland, Victoria, committed by European settlers and the Aboriginal Police during the Australian frontier wars ...

of Gunaikurnai aboriginal people. Her second book, ''Islands of Abandonment'', is an exploration of places where nature is reclaiming lands once occupied by humans, such as

Plymouth, Montserrat Plymouth is a ghost town and the ''de jure'' capital of the island of Montserrat, an overseas territory of the United Kingdom located in the Leeward Island chain of the Lesser Antilles, West Indies. It is the only ghost town that is the capit ...

, and

Chernobyl Chernobyl, officially called Chornobyl, is a partially abandoned city in Vyshhorod Raion, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine. It is located within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, to the north of Kyiv and to the southwest of Gomel in neighbouring Belarus. ...

. ''Islands of Abandonment'' won the

John Burroughs John Burroughs (April 3, 1837 – March 29, 1921) was an American naturalist and nature essayist, active in the conservation movement in the United States. The first of his essay collections was ''Wake-Robin'' in 1871. In the words of his bi ...

Medal for natural history writing. It was also shortlisted for the 2021

Wainwright Prize The Wainwright Prize is a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of general outdoors, nature and UK-based travel writing. In 2020 it was split into the Wainwright Prize for UK Nature Writing and the Wainwright Prize for Writing on Glo ...

for writing on global conservation, the 2021

Baillie Gifford Prize The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, formerly the Samuel Johnson Prize, is an annual British book prize for the best non-fiction writing in the English language. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award. With its ...

for Non-Fiction, the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 800 Fellows, elect ...

Ondaatje Prize The Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize is an annual literary award given by the Royal Society of Literature. The £10,000 award is for a work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry that evokes the "spirit of a place", and is written by someo ...

and the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...

Book Prize, among others. Flyn's third book ''The Savage Landscape'' is planned for publication in 2025.

Personal life

Flyn lives in the

Orkney Islands Orkney (), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The plural name the Orkneys is also sometimes used, but locals now consider it outdated. Part of the Northern Isles along with Shetland ...

Selected publications

*''Thicker Than Water: History, Secrets and Guilt: A Memoir'' (2016, William Collins: ) *''Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape'' (2020, William Collins: )

References

External links

* * * * (conversation with Ella Mershon, Newcastle University lecturer in Victorian literature) * (recorded on June 29, 2022; conversation with biologist

David G. Haskell David George Haskell is a British and American biologist, writer, and William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies at Sewanee: The University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee. He is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist in ...

) {{DEFAULTSORT:Flyn, Cal Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century Scottish women writers British women journalists Scottish non-fiction writers Alumni of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford People from Highland (council area)