“Unveiling Grief: Eiren Caffall Reveals the Hidden Wisdom in ‘The Mourner’s Bestiary'”
EC: I’m very stubborn.
AE: Yeah, and that stubbornness…
EC: Helps, it helps!
AE: How do you not just throw up your hands and say, well, I guess this isn’t for me, maybe I will go buy a goat farm instead. Twelve years is a long time, Eiren.
EC: I’m not gonna pretend that I was just head down, absolutely happy just to be asked to be a writer by the universe. That is not a narrative that I would ever bring to any place, but certainly not to a readership of creative nonfiction writers for whom the journey is mostly like this. Right? It’s mostly, Oh, I had an idea! I think I’m stretching beyond what I’m capable of doing as a writer. I’m being told it’s not working. I’m being told lots of different reasons why it’s not working. I’m being told even the genre we work in—like if you go to somebody and say I’m a memoirist? Well, good luck, and also nobody buys memoirs from people who aren’t famous anymore.
