#145 Solo Episode: Estelle’s Edge on Essays—Mining Your Life For Stories That Get Noticed
Release Date: 06/26/2025
#172 A Year in Motion: Writing, Teaching, and Publishing in Real Time
Freelance Writing Direct with Estelle: Conversations with authors, journalists, agents, novelists, memoirists, niche writers, publishers, writing teachers, assigning editors and media experts.
In this solo recap episode, Estelle Erasmus reflects on a year shaped by creative momentum, personal loss, and professional growth. As she approaches 200 podcast episodes, expands her teaching at NYU and Writer’s Digest, and leads small-group workshops, she considers what this season revealed and what she is carrying forward into 2026. She also revisits major moments including her TEDx talk, How to Get Noticed in Your Writing and Beyond, students publishing in outlets like Modern Love, Brevity, The Boston Globe, The Kenyon Review, Audacity, and Business Insider, and the shifting landscape of...
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#171 Musings on Writing Through Uncertainty with Abigail Thomas
Freelance Writing Direct with Estelle: Conversations with authors, journalists, agents, novelists, memoirists, niche writers, publishers, writing teachers, assigning editors and media experts.
Memoir often begins where certainty ends, and that is exactly where Abigail Thomas feels most alive on the page. In this thoughtful conversation between friends, Estelle Erasmus and Abigail explore what it means to write through uncertainty, follow curiosity, and let small surprising moments become the heart of a story. This episode is for writers who crave honesty on the page, who wrestle with self-doubt, and who want practical ways to turn ordinary moments and uncomfortable memories into powerful stories. In This Episode: How Abby’s writing process starts with curiosity rather than...
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#170 Braiding Cultural Context into Your Memoir with Melissa Fraterrigo
Freelance Writing Direct with Estelle: Conversations with authors, journalists, agents, novelists, memoirists, niche writers, publishers, writing teachers, assigning editors and media experts.
Estelle Erasmus sits down with award-winning author Melissa Fraterrigo, whose latest book, The Perils of Girlhood, is a memoir in essays that examines identity, fear, body image, motherhood, memory, and the cultural touchstones that shaped so many girls growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Together, Estelle and Melissa explore the moments that define girlhood, from fear and body image to parenting, consent, pop culture, and the stories we carry into adulthood, and how writing about them can open conversations we rarely have out loud. In this episode: The real fears that follow...
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#169 Finding the Line: How a Linear Structure Brought a Memoir Into Focus with Heather Sweeney
Freelance Writing Direct with Estelle: Conversations with authors, journalists, agents, novelists, memoirists, niche writers, publishers, writing teachers, assigning editors and media experts.
Some lives resist easy summary, and Heather Sweeney’s was one of them. After two decades inside a military marriage, marked by relocations, solo parenting, and a gradual loss of personal direction, she knew she had a story, but not yet a shape. Estelle Erasmus talks with Heather about how she translated that long, complicated stretch of living into her memoir, Camouflage: How I Emerged from the Shadows of a Military Marriage. They discuss the early drafting that felt scattered, the challenge of seeing her own experience clearly, and why a straightforward linear structure ultimately gave the...
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#168 The Making of A Modern Love Essay, “Negotiating the End of Us” with Leslie B. Blanchard
Freelance Writing Direct with Estelle: Conversations with authors, journalists, agents, novelists, memoirists, niche writers, publishers, writing teachers, assigning editors and media experts.
Leslie B. Blanchard joins Freelance Writing Direct for a conversation about developing her Modern Love essay, finding the line that anchored the piece, writing honestly about anticipatory grief, discovering structure through revision, clarifying metaphor, understanding what makes a submission stand out, and learning what the story truly wanted to say.Modern Love essays aren’t accidents, they’re built from a bold hook, clear structure, and often, the courage to write through grief. In this episode of Freelance Writing Direct, Estelle Erasmus talks with her student, writer Leslie B....
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#167 Fairyland: A Transcendent Father–Daughter Story Finds New Life in Film with Alysia Abbott
Freelance Writing Direct with Estelle: Conversations with authors, journalists, agents, novelists, memoirists, niche writers, publishers, writing teachers, assigning editors and media experts.
Queer history is family history, and Alysia Abbott’s Fairyland proves how one father-daughter story can illuminate an entire era. In this conversation, Estelle Erasmus talks with Alysia about her acclaimed memoir of growing up with her single gay father in 1970s and 80s San Francisco, and how that memoir found new life as a feature film more than a decade later. In this discussion, they explore the love, art, grief, and legacy at the heart of the story. Alysia shares how her father built a queer literary community long before the internet, and how his journals, letters, poems,...
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#166 How to Write for Electric Literature with Editor-in-Chief Denne Michele Norris (Part 2)
Freelance Writing Direct with Estelle: Conversations with authors, journalists, agents, novelists, memoirists, niche writers, publishers, writing teachers, assigning editors and media experts.
Electric Literature is where emerging writers become working authors—and in this conversation, I’m taking you behind the scenes with Editor-in-Chief Denne Michele Norris (who I spoke with last week about her debut novel) to unpack exactly what they publish, how they edit, the pitches that stand out, the craft mistakes that make editors stop reading, and the kinds of stories they want to run next. Electric Lit’s mission is to make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Denne explains how that plays out across their digital journal, including The Commuter, Recommended Reading,...
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#165 Giving Every Character Main Character Energy in Your Novel with Denne Michele Norris Part 1
Freelance Writing Direct with Estelle: Conversations with authors, journalists, agents, novelists, memoirists, niche writers, publishers, writing teachers, assigning editors and media experts.
I loved diving into this conversation with Denne Michele Norris, author, and Editor in Chief of Electric Literature. Her insight into writing every character with depth, presence, and main character energy is both generous and deeply human, and this is just Part 1 of our two part discussion. In this illuminating episode, Denne shares the craft behind her stunning debut, When the Harvest Comes, a sweeping queer love story that explores grief, faith, identity, and the transformative power of embracing difference. Stay tuned. Next week, Denne returns to cover what catches her attention as an...
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#164 Writing the Restorative Memoir: Finding Meaning in the Messy Middle of Recovery with Mallary Tenore Tarpley
Freelance Writing Direct with Estelle: Conversations with authors, journalists, agents, novelists, memoirists, niche writers, publishers, writing teachers, assigning editors and media experts.
What if the truest recovery story isn’t about redemption—but restoration? What if healing means learning to live inside the messy middle? Estelle Erasmus talks with journalist and professor Mallary Tenore Tarpley, author of SLIP: Life in the Middle of Eating Disorder Recovery. Mallary shares how she wrote from the in-between—the liminal space between illness and full recovery—crafting a narrative that honors imperfection and progress. Content note: This episode discusses eating...
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#163 Writing the Unresolved Story: Trying and Telling the Unvarnished Truth Featuring Chloé Caldwell
Freelance Writing Direct with Estelle: Conversations with authors, journalists, agents, novelists, memoirists, niche writers, publishers, writing teachers, assigning editors and media experts.
What happens when your life unravels up in the middle of writing your book — your marriage ends, fertility treatments stop, your identity shifts, and you have to rewrite the story you thought you were living? In this episode, Estelle Erasmus interviews acclaimed author Chloe Caldwell about her new book, TRYING, a radically honest, formally innovative memoir about fertility, longing, divorce, sexuality, and choosing yourself. Chloe opens up about writing through infertility, divorce, queerness, and identity, and how her real life reshaped the story she thought she was telling. In this...
info_outlineIn this bite-sized solo episode, Estelle Erasmus shares her insider strategies for turning real-life moments into essays that stand out—and sell. From capturing grief or joy to finding the magic in the mundane, Estelle shows you how to shape your story, sharpen your angle, and give your writing the attention it deserves.
In this episode:
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How to combine unexpected ideas to find a fresh angle [2:43]
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Tips for capturing story-worthy moments without keeping a journal [4:49]
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The power of sensory language and scene-building [7:28]
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Why Estelle teaches both craft and publication strategy [7:48]
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How to pitch a coaching episode or get more from her Substack [8:37]
If you haven’t yet—watch my TEDx Talk:
How to Get Noticed in Your Writing and Beyond
In this bold, funny, and widely shared talk, I blend personal storytelling with the real-world writing strategies I’ve developed as a longtime magazine editor, NYU professor, and writing coach. It all starts with a chaotic moment involving Thomas the Tank Engine—and builds into a powerful message about how to stand out in a crowded, noisy world, no matter the medium.
📺 Watch, comment, and share: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpcWmjpzSIQ
About Estelle:
Estelle Erasmus is an award-winning journalist, author of Writing That Gets Noticed (named a “Best Book for Writers” by Poets & Writers), and host of Freelance Writing Direct—2025 Podcast of the Year (Education), American Writing Awards. A Contributing Editor for Writer’s Digest and adjunct instructor at NYU, she’s written for over 150 outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, WIRED, PBS/Next Avenue, The Independent, and AARP: The Magazine, and has served as editor-in-chief of five national magazines.
Explore More:
Writing That Gets Noticed – Buy the book: https://rb.gy/0dpdcs
Audiobook version: https://tinyurl.com/yskfj2zv
Subscribe on Substack for craft tips, pitch advice, and podcast extras: https://estelleserasmus.substack.com
Latest posts: “Stop Counting Your Words. Start Shaping Your Story—And a Bonus for Paid Subscribers.” and “How to Get Published in Cosmopolitan or Seventeen”
Listen to more episodes of Freelance Writing Direct: https://estelleserasmus.com/podcast
Follow Estelle:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/EstelleSErasmus
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@EstelleSErasmus
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EstelleSErasmus
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/estelleserasmus.bsky.social
Student Spotlight
Barbra Cosentino, one of Estelle’s students, began working on this personal essay in Estelle’s class. It later evolved into this beautiful, published piece that reflects the kind of storytelling we explore in this episode.
Read it here: “My Mother, Floating in the Atlantic Ocean”—Next Avenue
https://www.nextavenue.org/my-mother-floating-in-the-atlantic-ocean/