Author Bio

Casey Mulligan Walsh was born in the New Jersey suburbs of New York City but moved at age twelve to a small upstate New York town to live with relatives after losing both of her parents within a year. There, she developed the tenacious spirit that would define her life and help her find meaning in the face of tragedy. Casey believes, as Carl Jung did, that “we are not what has happened to us, we are who we choose to become.” 

Casey married, had three children, then returned to college and earned her master’s degree in Communication Disorders, a fitting extension of her lifelong love of language. She worked as a speech-language pathologist for  twenty years, providing the individualized support, including literacy-focused intervention, she wished her own children had received when faced with educational challenges.

Though Casey thought she’d found the “full catastrophe” of life and the belonging she craved, her marriage ended in a volatile divorce, and her eldest son died at age twenty. Decades of repeated loss and trauma required her to develop a new perspective regarding who we are in the world, what we mean to each other, and how our connection never dies.

A friend has dubbed Casey “the grief sherpa” because of her passion for supporting those who are grieving–and those who love someone who is grieving–all manner of losses, including those that are spoken of, such as the death of a loved one, serious illness, and so on, and the sort few are willing to discuss, including relationship challenges, divorce, troubled children, and estrangement.

For the past decade, Casey has written about life at the intersection of grief and joy, embracing the in-between, and finding meaning. The overwhelming response to “Still,” her recent flash essay about her son Eric’s death, published in Split Lip Magazine and nominated for Best of the Net, illustrates how her writing about this topic resonates with readers. Her essays have also appeared in the New York Times, HuffPost, Next Avenue, Beyond, the Manifest-Station, Hippocampus, Barren Magazine, Emerge Journal, Five Minute Lit, The Under Review, Modern Loss, and elsewhere (see Marketing and Promotion). Her work will be included in Daring to Breathe, a forthcoming anthology highlighting the voices of those who have not only survived the rigors of loss and heartache, but who have ultimately been transformed while walking the journey. 

Casey’s memoir, The Full Catastrophe: All I Ever Wanted, Everything I Feared, is forthcoming from Motina Books in early 2025.

Casey also writes about familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), the genetic cardiovascular disorder that claimed her father’s and brother’s lives and affects her and several of her family. These pieces appear in a monthly blog at WebMD, in Circulation: Genomics and Precision Medicine, and at www.familyheartfoundation.org, an organization that raises awareness for FH and for which she is an advocate for awareness. In connection with this role, she serves as a consumer reviewer for research applications related to lipid disorders, hypertension, and other cardiac disorders through the Department of Defense.

Since remarrying in 2002, Casey has lived with her husband near Albany, NY. When not traveling, Casey and her husband enjoy frequent visits from their four children and ten grandchildren–the very definition of the full catastrophe. Casey also enjoys reading, photography, crocheting, and, of course, writing. She’s convinced kindness, compassion, and a warm cinnamon bun have the power to heal the world.