Kelly Carlin loves tackling the big questions – What are we to do with this one life? Who do we want to be as a species? How does one create a life of depth, joy and meaning in a world that can’t slow down for 2 minutes? When is it okay to finally love and accept ourselves? Where the fuck are my keys?
Whether she’s talking on her podcast, “Waking from the American Dream,” performing her solo show about her life and family, or interviewing today’s top comics on her SiriusXM show, “The Kelly Carlin Show,” Kelly pursues the big questions, and reveals unmined perspectives that opens minds and hearts. Her personal stories, pathos, and beautifully articulated psychological insight reveal what it takes to live the authentic life.
Most recently she’s done that in her highly acclaimed memoir, published by St. Martin’s Press in September 2015, “A Carlin Home Companion: Growing up with George,” Kelly’s honesty, keen insight and humor is also on full display. Lewis Black called it, “Honest, biting, savage, funny, sad, dark, and profound.” And Jay Mohr reveals her true gift by saying, “For anyone that has ever not been sure who they are, this book is for you. There is a landing spot. Let Kelly Carlin be your beacon.”
When Kelly travels the country to speak in front of organizations, companies and non-profits, you’ll find her exploring the dark crevices and celebrating the sunny heights of her own life in service of being that beacon – calling forth women to become the truth tellers of world, inspiring the Secular Humanist community to define the meaning of life without religion, and challenging our culture’s thinking about death and loss by revealing the transformational power of grief.
As a child, Kelly first explored her creativity by writing skits and doing imitations (her Ethel Merman was quite good for an eight year old), but began her professional life working behind the scenes with her father, George Carlin, and mother, Brenda, on various shows for HBO. In her twenties, she dabbled in acting, photography, and lets just say, lived a lot of life and learned a lot of lessons.
In 1993, at the ripe age of 30, she graduated from UCLA, Magna Cum Laude, with a B.A. in Communications Studies where she discovered her voice as a writer. She and her husband Robert McCall wrote together and had some success in TV and film. After her mother’s death in 1997, Kelly found her true calling, autobiographical storytelling, and wrote and performed her one-woman show, “Driven To Distraction.”
But something more than the entertainment industry was calling Kelly, and so she pursued her masters in Jungian Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate institute so she could explore the nexus of storytelling, psychology and those big questions of life. But life has plans of it’s own, and when Kelly’s father died in 2008, her life changed dramatically.
Since then she has taken up the torch of his legacy by spreading his life’s work through many media, protecting his work and image in the public sphere, and stepping into the limelight in her own right. In the last eight years she has written/performed her solo show all over the US, produced the critically acclaimed Showtime show, “The Green Room with Paul Provenza,” created and hosted her popular podcast and SiriusXM shows, published her memoir to rave reviews, and inspired thousands of artists, business leaders, writers, and truth seekers through her public speaking one-day and weekend workshops.