About the Author

Dan Cashman, author of The Reflectory and founder of the Life Reclamation Project.

Dan Cashman at the Day Hill fireplace

About Dan

I'm Dan Cashman. I'm smack in the middle of the age range the Life Reclamation Project is built for — about 58 to 62, with room for a few years on either side. Until recently, I worked for large multinational companies — more than thirty years of responsible work that paid the bills and kept the family steady, even when it wasn't really me. Then a reassignment. New work that required technical knowledge I didn't have, starting at 5 AM, with no clear end. That was the day I couldn't keep going. At the same time, a chronic health condition that I have was telling a story I'd been deferring for too long.

Walking away was the best thing that could have happened. It gave me back the two things I'd been putting off for years: my health, and the writing I'd started long before any of this.

I grew up in South St. Paul, Minnesota, went to college at Saint Cloud State University, and studied abroad in England at Alnwick Castle (yes, the Harry Potter castle), then backpacked through Europe and Russia. Of all the places I've been, my home-base vacation spot has always been Lake Superior: the shipwrecks and lighthouses, the big Nor'easters, the scenery. My first novel, The Reflectory, takes place in the shadow of Split Rock Lighthouse. I'm not really much of a word guy. Stories, to me, are more like movies, and Jon Hassler and Tracy Chevalier are the writers who finally pushed me to make one of my own. I'm revising The Reflectory now, with an audiobook and more of the Newton's Realm series to follow.

These days I'm building the Life Reclamation Project: health, wealth, and presence, together instead of one at a time. RAMP is how I rebuild my body, Runway is how I think about money as room to choose, and RISE is how I practice actually being here. I live in Prescott, Arizona. I'm an introvert, happiest in an aspen grove at an unhurried pace, and still a North Shore regular whenever I can get there. I'm not a doctor, a financial advisor, or a therapist. I'm someone a few steps down the same trail.

Find me

Contact: [email protected]

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