Cal Flyn is a Scottish author and journalist.

Early life

Flyn was born in

Inverness Inverness (; from the gd, Inbhir Nis , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness"; sco, Innerness) is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands. Histori ...

, Scotland. She attended Charleston Academy, a state secondary school. As a child, she underwent orthopedic surgery to correct proximal femoral focal deficiency affecting the left leg. Flyn holds an MA in experimental psychology from

Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford Lady Margaret Hall (LMH) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, located on the banks of the River Cherwell at Norham Gardens in north Oxford and adjacent to the University Parks. The college is more formall ...

, and a

NCTJ The National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) was founded in 1951 as organisation to oversee the training of journalists for the newspaper industry in the United Kingdom and is now playing a role in the wider media. It is a self-ap ...

certificate in newspaper journalism from Lambeth College.

Career

After graduation, Flyn worked as a reporter for The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph. She left her job in 2012 to work at a dog-sledding kennels in Finnish Lapland. 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 Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with be ...

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'', '' The Guardian'', The '' Wall Street Journal'', '' The Sunday Times Magazine'', 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 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, and Chernobyl. ''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 bio ...

Medal for natural history writing. It was also shortlisted for the 2021 Wainwright Prize for writing on global conservation, the 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, the

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

's Ondaatje Prize and the British Academy Book Prize, among others.

Personal life

Flyn lives in the

Orkney Islands Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...

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

* * {{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)