Caitlyn Rain is from Tucson, Arizona, where she grew up in circumstances that were far from perfect, yet those experiences taught her resilience and how to see the world in her own way. She discovered poetry at five years old through the work of Emily Dickinson, and it became something she carried with her through years of foster care and the constant shifts that came with it. In middle school, a few teachers noticed that she was writing poetry instead of doing her classwork, and one of those teachers entered her poems in school and district-wide contests, many of which earned her well-deserved acclaim. She didn’t love the attention, but she kept writing because it felt natural.

In high school, she discovered film photography. The slow, hands‑on process made sense to her, and over time, words and images became the two places where she could sort through her thoughts. She kept both close as she moved into adulthood.

At thirty, she survived a near-fatal accident that made her rethink how she wanted to spend her time. It didn’t turn her life into a dramatic before‑and‑after—it just made things clearer. She started pursuing the things she’d always been drawn to: the ocean, sharks, freediving, and conservation work that relies on storytelling as much as science.

Today, Caitlyn is still a verbally and visually poetic storyteller and a conservation-focused nonprofit grant writer. She has also stepped into the producer’s role, supporting independent films focused on sharks and how healthy coexistence, as well as the ways people connect with the ocean and with each other. Her work is shaped by her early love of poetry, her years behind a camera, and the steady belief that stories—and how we tell them—can change how people see the world.