In honor of Women’s History Month, Atwood Magazine has invited artists to participate in a series of essays reflecting on identity, music, culture, inclusion, and more.

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Today, New England dark pop artist Eva James shares her essay, ‘From Darkness to the Spotlight: How Chronic Illness Transformed My Music & My Life,’ for Atwood Magazine’s Women’s History Month series!

A mesmerizing force in the realm of intimate dark pop, Eva James emerges with a voice that embodies both complexity and strength. Her music conjures a delicate balance of haunting beauty and raw vulnerability, drawing listeners into a world where shadows reveal their own kind of light. Eva’s siren-like allure reflects a captivating mystique, evoking comparisons to legends like Stevie Nicks and Joni Mitchell while channeling the soul-stirring grit of Bonnie Raitt and Grace Potter.

With lyrics that delve into mental health, anxiety, and the labyrinth of toxic relationships, Eva wields her songs as both confession and catharsis. She transforms personal pain into universal truths, demonstrating an unflinching strength in her vulnerability. Her music is more than a collection of melodies; it’s a dark, introspective journey that invites listeners to explore their own complexities.

In 2023, Eva’s magnetic presence captivated audiences as she won the Gloucester 400th Anniversary Singer-Songwriter Challenge, solidifying her place as an artist to watch. That same year, she traveled to New York to collaborate with Grammy-winning artist Paula Cole, beginning the recording of her debut album. Set to release in 2025, Earth to Eva promises to be a stunning exploration of the human condition, weaving together themes of resilience and self-discovery with an evocative, intimate soundscape.

As she finishes work on her debut album and continues to play shows across New England, Eva James stands as a beacon of both mystery and relatability – a modern witch of melody casting spells through music. Prepare to be enchanted. Listen to “Something New” wherever you stream music, and ready Mali Hâf’s Women’s History Month essay below!

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FROM DARKNESS TO THE SPOTLIGHT

How Chronic Illness Transformed My Music & My Life

by Eva James

I don’t believe in coincidences.

If I did, my entire life up until this point would seem like one long string of repeated happenstance.

I have been blessed and cursed in equal measure with an unmatched clarity, a perspective shaped powerfully by the awareness of my own mortality, that disrupted everything I thought I knew about life, and tuned me in to my purpose on this earth: music. And it wasn’t until I got sick that I was able to rise above my own self-doubt and deprecation long enough to reach for it.

In the fall of 2023, the same year I began pursuing the career I had always dreamed of and recorded my debut album, my health took a turn for the worse. I stood in front of a mirror in my apartment, naked. At 95 pounds, I was a shell of who I once was. I did not recognize the woman staring back at me with vacant eyes, her body aching with exhaustion and hanging onto the last shreds of a life force that would easily fizzle out if given the chance to do so. My chronic illness diagnoses were not new, but I was officially the sickest I had ever been, and if I left my body to its own devices, I am confident I would not have survived. It’s a simple yet overlooked truth that we do not appreciate what we have until it’s gone. With my health at rock bottom, for the first time in my life, I was separated from music. I laid in bed, praying to a higher power I was not sure even existed, and promised that I would sacrifice absolutely everything else I had ever held dear, for the strength and health that pursuing a career in music would require me to have.

It was then, with nothing left to lose and my dreams just out of reach, that I decided to fight like hell. As I got more aggressive with medical treatments, the changes I made in other areas of my life were equally necessary. I found a silver lining in the way that living with chronic illness naturally removes things — and people — from your life that were never meant to be there. On the other side of the grief, I found an acceptance and appreciation for this initially shocking process of elimination and learned the art of letting go — I wish I could say I’ve mastered that art, but it’s an ongoing practice.

When I started losing my hair — a small price to pay for a medication that was saving my life — I finally had the courage to shave my head and it was more liberating than I could’ve imagined. My priorities solidified and my gratitude increased for things I previously had taken for granted. With the fading static of a past life, my music and my health intertwined to become the sole focus of my existence, each one finding strength in the other. With every medical victory, I grew stronger and more determined in my purpose. With every song written and gig played, I felt the healing power of music coursing through my veins, carrying me out of the darkness an into the light of the future I was fighting so hard to have.

In the fall of 2024, I stepped onto the stage at a social club in Brookline.

Across the bar is a mirror, and in its reflection I saw not a body fighting desperately for bare minimum survival, but a body radiating with resilience and strength, carrying its battle scars proudly, rewarded for its patience and perseverance. I saw a woman emanating a well earned fortitude, every note telling the story of what it took to rise from the ashes of a shattered nervous system and piece by piece, cultivate a life worth living.

I will be tending to my health for the rest of my life, maintaining the rhythm of treatments and lifestyle changes I’ve crafted over the last few years, keeping my body and mind in a state of symbiosis that allows me to do what I love most in the world. But I wouldn’t change any of it, because it was only when I thought I was going to die that I finally learned how to live — and that can’t be a coincidence. – Eva James

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