Cal Flyn

Cal Flyn is a Scottish author and journalist whose work focuses on nature writing, investigative reporting, and literary nonfiction. Flyn holds a master's degree in experimental psychology from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and a certificate in newspaper journalism from Lambeth College. After graduation, Flyn worked as a reporter for The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph before transitioning to long-form writing. Flyn's journalism has appeared in Granta, National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, The Sunday Times, The Economist, and other major publications.

Flyn's debut book, "Thicker Than Water," examines frontier violence in colonial Australia through the story of her ancestor Angus McMillan, a pioneer implicated in massacres of Indigenous Gunai people. The book explores themes of intergenerational guilt and atonement and was named a Times book of the year. Flyn's second book, "Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape," investigates the ecology and psychology of forsaken sites, such as nuclear zones and ghost towns, where nature recovers in the absence of humans. The book received the John Burroughs Medal, the American Academy of Arts & Letters' E.M. Forster Award, and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year prize, and was shortlisted for several literary awards, including the Wainwright Prize, the British Academy Book Prize, the Ondaatje Prize, and the Baillie Gifford Prize.

Flyn's third book, "The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness," continues her exploration of humanity's relationship with the natural world. The book examines remote and wild places, from the black-sand beaches of Iceland to the Amazon jungle and Antarctica, and considers the concept of wilderness at the intersection of landscape, philosophy, and ecology. Flyn analyzes how people have sought out uncharted nature for religious epiphany, self-actualization, and escape from modern life. The book has been recognized by leading environmental writers.

Flyn serves as Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Wesleyan University and deputy editor of the literary recommendations site Five Books. She has written for The Guardian, Granta, National Geographic, and The Wall Street Journal. Flyn was previously writer-in-residence at Gladstone's Library and the Jan Michalski Foundation in Switzerland, and is a fellow of the MacDowell and Yaddo artists colonies. Flyn's work is recognized for blending research, immersive travel, and literary nonfiction to examine environmental issues and the human relationship with nature.