#169 Finding the Line: How a Linear Structure Brought a Memoir Into Focus with Heather Sweeney
Release Date: 12/11/2025
#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...
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#162 Lessons from the People of Publishing Conference
Freelance Writing Direct with Estelle: Conversations with authors, journalists, agents, novelists, memoirists, niche writers, publishers, writing teachers, assigning editors and media experts.
Ever wonder what’s really happening behind closed doors in the publishing industry? In this solo episode, Estelle Erasmus pulls back the curtain on the People of Publishing Conference, held on September 17, 2025, and hosted by the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA). Featuring top CEOs, editors, and agents, the event revealed key trends, challenges, and opportunities shaping today’s book world. Estelle shares her firsthand insights—including what publishing leaders are prioritizing, how AI is reshaping the industry, and what authors can do to stand out in an evolving...
info_outlineSome 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 narrative its definition. Heather shares how moving chronologically helped her understand what moments carried weight, what could be left out, and how structure can reveal meaning that isn’t visible in real time.
In this episode:
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How Heather determined that a linear structure best served her story [1:33]
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How she found the true “start” of her memoir [3:00]
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How she used a three part structure built around beginnings and endings [5:18]
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How reader responses to her early essay revealed a gap in stories about military divorce [7:02]
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Why the book needed forward motion instead of fragmentation [11:31]
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How she balanced writing about real people with protecting privacy [12:00]
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Turning years of journals into a clean storyline [13:21]
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How she considered weaving in military history or prescriptive elements, and why she chose to keep the memoir focused and personal [15:03]
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What she’s excited about next in her writing life [28:44]
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Why readers from all backgrounds connect with her story [30:06]
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GlBYpm9Ac2Y
About Heather Sweeney:
Heather Sweeney is the author of the memoir Camouflage: How I Emerged from the Shadows of a Military Marriage. She writes about divorce, life as a military spouse, parenting, and women’s health, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, HuffPost, Business Insider, TODAY.com, Newsweek, Good Housekeeping, Healthline, Reader’s Digest and Military.com, among many others. She lives in Virginia with her boyfriend and two college-aged kids.
Connect with Heather:
Order Camouflage on Estelle's Bookshop https://bookshop.org/a/98827/9798895653081
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/writersweeney
Substack: https://heathersweeney.substack.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-sweeney-5a15115b/
X/Twitter: https://x.com/WriterSweeney
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About Estelle
Estelle Erasmus is an award-winning journalist,TEDx Speaker, author of Writing That Gets Noticed, and host of Freelance Writing Direct. A contributing editor for Writer’s Digest and adjunct professor at NYU, her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, WIRED, PBS/Next Avenue, The Independent, and AARP The Magazine. She has served as editor-in-chief of five national magazines.
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