Amy Frykholm

Check out Amy's debut book of poems, The Hour of Light.
This new book is a dialogue between biblical figures
Ruth and Elijah: spare, contemplative, and searching. Buy here!


With a scholar's eye and a mystic's heart, Frykholm offers a look at an elusive and dynamic figure from history while offering insights into our own inner--and potentially rewilded--lives. In search of Mary, the author traveled throughout Egypt, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, walking deeper and deeper into the desert, across thresholds of space and time, to find the meaning of Mary of Egypt's life--as well as her own embrace of the wild and sacred within.

Publisher's Weekly

“Frykholm’s lyrical reflections on Mary of Egypt as an “icon of desire” are stirring (“At the edge of yourself, you stumble onto her. She is already ahead of you in the wilderness—the Wild Woman, that deep woman of myth, who goes away from outer authority to find an inner authority, who goes out into the wilderness to seek bewilderment”), though her attempts to tease out Mary’s story never reach a definitive conclusion, and readers will likely find this works better as a spiritual reflection than as a travelogue. Despite this, patient readers will find many intelligent takes on the value of pursuing the sacred in one’s life.”

Presbyterian Outlook

“In addition to the engrossing story of these outward and inward pilgrimages, readers will appreciate Frykholm’s own translation of Sophronious’ account of Mary and the monk Zosimas (painstakingly created by Frykholm and her father, a Greek scholar). The memoir concludes with “Life of Mary of Egypt,” followed by a poem of Mary’s three meetings with the monk that describes him encountering her body and burying her with the help of a lion. The inclusion of these two pieces adds academic and artistic intensity to the book.”

Leadville Herald Democrat

From the flight of Mary’s story into her hands in a Boulder library to her trek to the ancient desert monasteries, Frykholm’s “Wild Woman” is a story of signs. “You have to hone your skills of perception,” Frykholm writes, “cultivate the mysteries of beholding, attend relentlessly to what the ‘intelligence of the present’ is telling you … lean in close and listen.”




A podcast about searching but not always finding, hosted by Amy Frykholm.
Out now! Season One: the desert, a traditional place in the history of Christianity to begin searches.