We Have So Much to Talk About
A pop-up book talk for BOUNDLESS, with moms, cocktails and stories that crack your heart wide open. + ZOOM EVENT + Listening tour + Stories + Songs retreat in Montana/Yellowstone
We have so much to talk about! I want to know how you reawakened your life after you raised your children and they left the nest.
I want to know if you felt free—and if freedom was frightening and delighting at once.
I want to know if you felt lost, empty and depleted—because after giving it your all, you realized you’d left a few things untended—such as your own self. I want to know if it hit you that it had been two decades since you’d asked the question, “What do I want?”
I want to know if you felt young and agile again—ready to try something new, like travel, writing a book, falling in love.
I want to know if you discovered something that was truer than true.
I knew you had stories to share! All of this was confirmed at a pop-up book party for Boundless last month at the splendorous Sandia Bar in Corrales, New Mexico.
Moms, cocktails and a story that spoke to the heart
Four days before, friends Katy (empty-nested) and Kristen (with a 2-year-old, or, as I call him, a future nest jumper) spread the word through their Pilates class. “My friend has a book—I can’t put it down! Want to meet her?” “My friend wrote a book—it’s about reinventing yourself after your children are up and out! Want to meet her?”
The idea was like lightning! Moms, artisan cocktails and a story that spoke to right where they were—time to bring my A game!
When Katy and I arrived to set up, she staked out the biggest table. “We’re going to need this one!” And then the moms streamed in.
Is this you? Do you have friends? I have book club discussion guide!
FOR BOOK CLUBS, SPIRITUAL COMMUNITIES
AND WOMEN’S CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING GROUPS
My goal with Boundless is to create rich language and vibrant community around becoming, whether that means life passages, the empty nest, Chapter Two womanhood, conscious parenting or spiritual concepts such as Thomas Merton’s teachings about the True Self.
As this page evolves, you’ll find specialized categories that may be good starting points for you. Keep coming back for a mix of podcasts, rituals and rites of passage, support guides and bonus material that I hope will be useful.
Invite me to your book club! I’m happy to zoom in. I have plenty of resources, practices and conversation guides that we can share together.
My whole-hearted listening tour
My pop-up signing was a heart-wide-open listening tour. What do you want to talk about? I asked.
I heard: How there is no ritual for this, no life passage. You are just expected to vanish and live in reference to your previous life as a mother.
I heard: How “a man is not a plan,” but it could be. In all the movies, the trope is that a woman who has raised her children either a) turns wholeheartedly back to her marriage and discovers a new person there -- her husband! Surprise! He’s kind of sexy! Or b) if she’s single, she goes to Tuscany and finds new love. All the wives gave option A 50-50, depending on the old man their husband had become. All the single ladies hinted a fling in Tuscany could be fun, and…they had bigger, better dreams.
I heard: This is so beautiful, and oh, it hurts. It’s so beautiful because of who your children become when they forge into adulthood and create themselves. One daughter had flown back from Norway, where she lives now, and showed up at the pop-up book signing with her mom—I’ve known her since she was 16. Our adult children show up so radiant with the discovery of themselves. It hurts because it’s so beautiful and you’re not there to see it all the time, but when you do…
Join me Feb. 13
So, I’m expanding my listening tour. In the next months, you’ll see a full slate of events for BOUNDLESS pop up here, including events in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Flagstaff, Phoenix, Denver and San Diego, as well as virtual.
The first virtual event is noon MST/2 p.m. EST Thursday, Feb. 13 on zoom.
It’s hosted by my publisher, Atmosphere Press, moderated by publicity director Hayla Alawi.
I’m featured with two other Atmosphere authors—Lucinda T. Green, Ph.D., Pathway to Freedom: Teachings of the Buddha and poet Susan McLeod, Seasons of Life.
Noon MST/2 p.m. EST
Feb. 13 (Thursday)
Zoom event
with Carolyn Dawn Flynn, Lucinda T. Green and Susan McLeod
Hosted by Hayla Alawi, Atmosphere Press
The reason I’m together with these authors? Mindfulness. Green is a Buddhist meditation teacher, McLeod is a poet. I am a longtime meditator and author of a book on mindfulness meditation, and I am a 2020 graduate of The Living School at Father Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation.
Early reviews
To give you a taste of what people are hearing in BOUNDLESS, I’ll spotlight a few of the early reviews.
From independent editorial book reviews:
Boundless is not just a story of a life in transition. It is also a hero’s journey out of the everyday world into one that questions everything from the necessity of material goods to the purpose of human life itself. With only her relationships to guide her through this transience and to transcendence, Flynn journeys into the darkness of the unknown and back to life again. But, of course, even when back again, everything has changed. In the end, it is about how we need never stop reinventing ourselves. And that a coming of age can happen at any point in the long years of a life.
I found her honesty to be a welcome invitation into the turmoil of the balancing act she was repeatedly faced with and I was able to connect with so much of what she shared on a level that I have not been able to do with other memoirs I’ve read. I think it will be the moments of disorganization and pervading emotional fights that readers will be most heartened by, as this is when her resilience shines the brightest. Flynn’s authenticity in the throes of both tenderness and frustration makes her memoir a powerful testament to the greatest prize of all: the reward of meaningful personal transformation.
From Amazon, by three authors I love:
Powerful memoir about where motherhood, employment, and place converge.
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2025
I was pulled right into this memoir with the power of the journey Boundless articulates as it delves into how motherhood, employment, and place converge. Flynn's understanding of growing/grown children as she captures and shows with searing truths yet humor the things mothers recognize, along with her expertise about how the publishing and job markets work, stood out to me. Boundless is smart in its thought, probing, richness of language, command of the sentence, and sense of place and people. Flynn's insights and honest self-examination are important for women to witness and learn from. Flynn's expertise as a novelist shines through this memoir as she smartly juxtaposes scenes and time jumps that deepen the tension and the human probing of moral, survival, and happiness issues for parents and children alike.
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2025
Flynn is a mystic and poet with lush descriptions on every page and a lyrical way of looking at the world. For example, “I struggled to take it in, this not-yet-spring scene in a rose Garden, its lushness curtailed, brown serrated leaves of hybrids and floribundas and heirloom roses drooping in the rain, marble statues, rust stained and barely breathing beneath the glass, their gleaming smooth skin dulled by gray sky that refused to let in any light. Standing before their cages, I watched them looking at me, afraid of what they may say.” And, by turns, Flynn often has a sense of humor: “A coffee house that boasted it still had a Bob Dylan vibe because he'd played there before anyone knew anything about hard rain or Rolling Stones or the complete unknown.”
Boundless is a memoir about empty nesting, which, for any mother, is a rite of passage that really doesn't have any rituals but needs them. I remember when my youngest moved into the dorm I'd already been seeing a therapist for months, preparing myself for this stage of abandonment, because that's what it felt like. My youngest was gone. I know longer had a grown daughter to occupy my lap as she was wont to do even she towered over me. Flynn takes us on that journey and then some, determined to care for her twins as they go off to college while embarking on an adventure of her own, only to meet the unexpected.
How Flynn deals with the unexpected is a journey in itself, taking her, and us, into the depths of despair and ultimately, triumph and reconciliation with life itself.
An important read for us men, too
Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2025
It's impossible to fully understand even the people closest to us, but Boundless gets us into the anxious mind of modern motherhood, marriage, and career navigation. I read some sections many times! A powerful and relentlessly honest account of life for today's woman. Exquisitely written!
BOUNDLESS on NetGalley
Are you a book reviewer, journalist, librarian, bookseller, book festival host, writing conference host, literary agent or book-to-film scout? BOUNDLESS is featured on NetGalley here, where you may download a PDF:
https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/549008
BOUNDLESS featured on 250 media outlets
Starting Feb. 1, BOUNDLESS was the featured book in 250 media outlets across the country, including newspapers great and small.
Here is a sampling of the 250 papers now showcasing BOUNDLESS:
Florida
https://pontevedrarecorder.com/premium/books-news/
Maryland
https://carolinereview.com/premium/books-news/
Massachusetts
https://www.thecricket.com/premium/books-news/
South Dakota
https://brookingsregister.com/premium/books-news/
Texas
https://www.community-news.com/premium/books-news/
Washington
https://www.edmondsbeacon.com/premium/books-news/
Wisconsin
https://hubcitytimes.com/premium/books-news/
Wyoming
https://www.torringtontelegram.com/premium/books-news/
I’M LISTENING, SO ASK ME ANYTHING!
As part of my campaign to get BOUNDLESS in bookstores in every state, I have a list of bookstores by state here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/155rfwSqh87lvlG6MppqNkPeJQ10W2L7Cnf24J8XEJEw/edit?usp=sharing
Choose your bookstore and order it from there. If there is a bookstore near you that is a favorite, please add it.
Did you know that if you order your book through Bookshop.org, you can designate a local independent bookstore, and that store will get the money—not Amazon?
When you do, you can post a question there to ask me anything—about the empty nest, about living boundlessly, about mindfulness meditation. You’ll be the first to know about an ASK ME ANYTHING event with your sweet questions!
Or, because I am The Story Catalyst, a book coach/developmental editor/publication consultant who has helped multiple hundreds of authors on their path to becoming an author, you can ask me about:
How to get a book published
How to get started writing your book
How to outline your book
How to set up a success matrix for your writing life, whether that’s
hiring a developmental editor
cultivating a peer workshop group that actually helps and doesn’t harm
just having time to write
taking a writing retreat (whether you find it or make it)
AND FINALLY…WE’RE TAKING STORIES + SONGS to YELLOWSTONE
STORIES AND SONGS WRITING RETREAT
MONTANA/YELLOWSTONE
SEPT. 22-26, 2025
Chico Hot Springs
Pray, Montana
Sign up for Feb. 19 zoom here
Join us for a live Q&A about the Stories + Songs Writing Retreat in Montana/Yellowstone for storytellers and songwriters.
6 p.m. MST/7 p.m. CST/8 p.m. EST
Wednesday, Feb. 19
Only 7 spots left for this year’s retreat!
By registering for this live Q&A with Carolyn, Karen and Clay, you gain priority access for the Super Early Bird Rate, which is $500 off the standard rate.
The earlier you register, the higher you are in the line. Depending on the slots that remain, the Super Early Bird Rate will be available to the first registrants. Should we hit capacity, we will put you on the waitlist.
The Super Early Bird Rate is $3,495 and is available now through Feb. 23. There are two ways to lock in this rate before slots slip away:
> GET IT NOW! Go now to https://storiesandsongsretreat.com/ and pay a nonrefundable $500 deposit.
> SAVE YOUR PLACE IN LINE! Register for the Q&A zoom call to guarantee priority access to the Super Early Bird Rate.
The standard rate for the retreat is $3,995 -- so you’re saving a lot! Yeah, and who doesn’t want to save $500!
