#148 How to Hook Readers by Planting Curiosity Seeds in Interactive Novels with Bianca Marais
Release Date: 07/17/2025
#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_outlineEstelle Erasmus welcomes back acclaimed author and creator and host of The Shit No One Tells You About Writing podcast, Bianca Marais, to chat about her latest novel, A Most Puzzling Murder—an innovative, genre-blending mystery packed with magic, reader-driven puzzles, royal intrigue, and multiple points of view.
Bianca shares how she crafted this original story: a locked-room murder mystery set in a magical royal family, told through over a dozen POVs, choose-your-own-adventure chapters, and interactive puzzles that invite readers to email for clues and bonus content. Estelle and Bianca dive into everything from the writing process to the strategic use of point-of-view shifts, how to keep villains compelling, and what writers can learn from puzzles.
Together, Estelle and Bianca explore how to use curiosity to hook readers, build momentum with multiple POVs, and write villains who are flawed yet irresistible. Whether you're a fan of mysteries, a writer fascinated by craft, or just curious about what makes interactive fiction tick, this episode is a masterclass in creativity and reader engagement.
In this episode:
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How Bianca designed an interactive novel that readers can play and puzzle through [3:29]
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The role of puzzles, alternate endings, and bonus chapters in fiction [5:10]
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Craft tips on managing multi-POV narratives and character arcs [9:08]
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Keeping the pacing of a story and how to do it well [15:44]
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Building a strong foundation for a story [17:18]
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The five minute rule [18:51]
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Why flawed, relatable villains make the best antagonists [25:27]
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How Bianca balances creativity with market trends—and still writes from the heart [33:41]
Whether you're a mystery fan, an aspiring novelist, or just curious about how interactive fiction works, this episode is a masterclass in creativity, craft, and reader engagement.
Watch on YouTube:
Bianca Marais cohosts the popular podcast The Shit No One Tells You About Writing, which is aimed at helping emerging writers get published. She teaches creative writing through the podcast and was named a winner of the Excellence in Teaching Award for Creative Writing at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. She lives in Toronto, where she loves playing escape-room games and writing about strong female protagonists.
Connect with Bianca
Website
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/biancamarais_author/
Episode #63 Witchy Writing with Author/Podcast Host of The Shit No One Tells You About Writing with Bianca on Freelance Writing Direct
On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wTEu0HbXPM
Episode Where Bianca and CeCe talk about Bianca writing her book https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-shit-no-one-tells-you-about-writing/id1530250126?i=1000711255212
Don’t forget to check out my episode on The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Talking All about How to Get Your Writing Noticed, Pitching, Publishing and More.
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