Discipline/Field: Literary Nonfiction and Poetry

Based in: Riverside, CA

About: Eileen Elizabeth Espinoza is a queer essayist and poet living in Southern California. She is co-founder of Boshemia Magazine, a British-American feminist arts and culture magazine, co-host of the pop culture podcast What Else Are We Mad At? and has written for a variety of publications. As a Redesign Resident, she is completing the first draft of her manuscript, Carrying the Bones: Rituals for a Dying World, forthcoming from University Press of Kentucky (2024), pushing the boundaries of creative nonfiction and of what is expected in writing about death and dying.

Project Title: Carrying the Bones is a lyrical nonfiction narrative exploring the social and sacred function of grief rituals in the West. Through a journey of research, travel, and witness, Espinoza documents a history of grieving in the western world while creating her own mourning rituals closely tied to our Earth. In the midst of the mass casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic, her book asks how we can turn toward nature – our dying Earth – and toward each other in order to survive incalculable loss. As readers follow along her journey of discovering, borrowing, and creating ritual, they too will find new ways to grieve and perhaps even develop or recognize their own rites of mourning.

Relevant links: @eileendotnet on twitter, boshemiamagazine.com