Writing Through Collapse: Eiren Caffall on Illness, Climate, and Finding Your Memoir's Form

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How do you tell a story of resistance that invites others in? Through the power of your metaphors—something today’s guest, Eiren Caffall has truly mastered. During today’s conversation, we explore how chronic illness and a love for nature shaped Eiren’s memoir The Mourner’s Bestiary, what it means two books in tandem (and release them just months apart), and how crafting metaphor-rich, layered narratives can become both an act of resistance and devotion. It’s time to grab your pen, open your heart, and get ready to learn how collaboration can enhance your writing and how a single essay can become the hinge that holds an entire book together.

Episode Highlights

• 4:45: The Power of Juxtaposition 
• 7:50:  Metaphor as a Vehicle for Change 
• 15:30: Structuring a Circular Story 
• 20:33: Writing as a Collaborative Process
• 24:08: Teaching Patience
• 30:07 Red Tides and Amazing Editors 

Resources for this Episode: 

• Short Film: Becoming Ocean
• “Red Tides” by Eiren Caffall
• Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Allison 
• Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
• 3 Ways to Experiment with Memoir Structure to Improve Your Narrative Arc by Lisa Cooper Ellison
• INTERVIEW: Eiren Caffall, Author of The Mourner’s Bestiary by Amy Eaton

Eiren’s Bio: EIREN CAFFALL is a writer and musician. Her work on loss, oceans, and extinction has appeared in Orion, Writer’s Digest, Guernica, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, and the anthology Elementals: Volume IV. Fire, (The Center for Humans and Nature, 2024). She received a 2023 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, a Social Justice News Nexus fellowship, and residencies at the Banff Centre, Millay Colony, Hedgebrook, and Ragdale. Her books include her memoir The Mourner’s Bestiary (Row House Publishing, 2024) and her novel All the Water in the World (St. Martin’s Press, 2025).

Connect with Eiren

• Website: www.eirencaffall.com
• Instagram: @eirencaffall 
• Blue Sky: @eirencaffall.bsky.social

Connect with your host, Lisa:
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Produced by Espresso Podcast Production