Poets and writers Eileen Espinoza and Nynke Passi will be reading from their work tonight, followed by a Q & A. Nynke founded and directs MIU's MFA program in Creative Writing where Eileen is a full-time faculty. After the session, both writers are available to answer any questions about our innovative MFA, which focuses on consciousness and creative process, always putting the writer at the center.

Eileen Elizabeth Espinoza is a full-time faculty in our MFA program and a frequent mentor in various genres. She’s a queer essayist and poet, the co-founder of Boshemia Magazine, and the recipient of the 2021 McQuern Award in Nonfiction. Her essays have been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been selected by both Dorothy Allison and bell hooks for collections such as The Anthology of Appalachian Writers and Appalachian Review. She earned her MFA in Nonfiction from the University of California, Riverside, and her first book, Carrying the Bones: Rituals for a Dying World, is forthcoming from University Press of Kentucky (2024).

Nynke Salverda Passi is the director of this MFA program and co-chair of MIU’s English dept. She was born and raised in the Netherlands. Her work has been published in CALYX, Gulf Coast, Poetry Breakfast, Life & Legends, and more. Her poetry has been anthologized in Pandemic Puzzle Pieces and River of Earth & Sky (Blue Light Press), Carrying the Branch (Glass Lyre Press), and Oxygen: Parables of the Pandemic (River Paw Press). Together with Rustin Larson and Christine Schrum, she edited the poetry collection Leaves by Night, Flowers by Day.

Image of shrine with bones and flowers and dead squirrels: Ginger Persolus