Since 2003, Dr. Flanagan has served as a Cultural Ambassador for the United States Department of State. In 2005, she was the first American writer to be sent on a cultural mission to Libya in 25 years, an experience that opened doors to U.S. Missions around the world. Dr. Flanagan has served in Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Chile, Kuwait, Tajikistan, Morocco, Tunisia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Chad, Panama, India, and the Czech Republic.

In addition to lectures on literature, Flanagan performs her work, and engages in dialogue with citizens, students, professors, and journalists in these diverse countries on such subjects as US public policies, diversity, politics and race, and the achievement of success in hostile environments.

Flanagan is the author of numerous short stories, some of which are collected in  her most recent book, In Praise of Island Women & Other Crimes (Peepal Tree Press, 2010), two novels, Allah in the Islands (PTP, 2009), and the prize-winning You Alone Are Dancing (University of Michigan Press, 1996). She is at work on a book about the year she worked with the great American singer, Nina Simone, for which she was awarded a North Carolina Council for the Arts grant. In March 2011, Flanagan was the Rooney International Scholar at Robert Morris University in Pittsburg.