Jessica Ewing
First Year at BOSS: 2007
Current Position: Instructor, Board Member
Hometown: White Lake, Michigan
Currently Resides In: Austin, Texas
I came to BOSS because:
A friend initially floated the idea to me, and it sounded absolutely outrageous. I had very little outdoor experience at the time. What felt at the outset like a kind of ego challenge turned into a softening and a deepening. I learned more about myself at BOSS in a single month than I had in many years prior. Honestly, when I look back at my life since that student course, it’s clear to me how much of the unexpected courage to forge my own path came from the lessons of that desert.
I teach at BOSS because:
The struggle I had as a student was so rewarding, and so real that I was never the same. Sharing that experience with others is sacred in a way that I cannot describe. I love working with students on friction fire. It’s beautiful and my favorite of the hard skills by far. I also love teaching navigation and knots. But what I love the most is bearing witness to the struggle and helping students break through inner psychological barriers. Something mythical occurs out there, quite unexpectedly. I found it so intriguing honestly I spent years collecting fragments and assembling them into a book I hope to share one day.
About Jessica Ewing:
Jessica is the Founder and CEO of Literati, a bookclub company based in Austin, Texas. She started her career in technology, studying artificial intelligence at Stanford and working at Google. Inspired by the desert and the work of the late mythologist Joseph Campbell, Jessica decided to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a writer. She spent five years teaching at BOSS and writing about the experience before starting a literature company. She lives in Austin, Texas with her dog, Campbell.
