• Freelance Writing Direct: Conversations with authors, journalists, agents, novelists, memoirists, niche writers, agents, publishers, writing teachers, assigning editors and media experts.

  • By: Estelle Erasmus
  • Podcast

Freelance Writing Direct: Conversations with authors, journalists, agents, novelists, memoirists, niche writers, agents, publishers, writing teachers, assigning editors and media experts.

By: Estelle Erasmus
Listen for free

  • Summary

  • Welcome to the Freelance Writing Direct podcast. Join Estelle Erasmus every week as she shares short, sound bite-filled podcasts, covering everything that the creative writer, freelance writer, and author needs to know to move forward in their creativity and career. Estelle will share how the sauce is made, with tips and tricks to give you a leg up in the marketplace. The podcast will also feature interviews with authors and writers who are generous with their own advice. Throughout the episodes, Estelle will evolve with the audience, as she listens to her guests, share pitches and essays, and offer writing and career prompts. If you want to learn how to get your work published and noticed you are in the right place. This show will provide answers to questions like: *How can I get started writing? *What are assigning editors in top publications looking for? *How can I find an agent? *What do publishers want? *What are writing craft tips I can implement right away to get published? *How can my pitches to editors make an impact? *What do bestselling authors recommend I do to improve my writing practice? *What craft tips do writing teachers recommend? *What are tips, tricks and strategies for getting my writing noticed? It’s time to build your craft with Freelance Writing Direct. Estelle can’t wait to read what you will be writing.
    2022
    Show more Show less
activate_WEBCRO358_DT_T2
Episodes
  • #103 Launching Into New Dimensions with Embodied Writing Featuring Jeannine Ouellette

    #103 Launching Into New Dimensions with Embodied Writing Featuring Jeannine Ouellette
    Sep 5 2024
    Jeannine Ouellette’s lyric memoir, The Part That Burns, was a 2021 Kirkus Best Indie Book and a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Award in Women’s Literature. She is also the author of the picture book, Mama Moon. Her literary essays and short fiction have appeared widely in anthologies and journals, including Narrative, North American Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Masters Review, Calyx, and many others. She holds an MFA in fiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is a Millay Colony for the Arts fellow and past juror. Her bestselling Substack, Writing in the Dark, is a passionate creative community for people who “do language,” where writing is part of a deeper, vaster conversation about how attention, curiosity, playfulness, and surprise provide a portal to the profound on the path to becoming, because talking about “how to write better” without that larger context is kind of boring. Ouellette teaches writing at the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop and the University of Minnesota, where she also facilitates narrative health writing workshops for healthcare professionals and the public. She is working on a novel. In this episode: Finding her way into literary writing later in life [4:15] Creating art that blurs boundaries [7:20] Making magic with metaphor and the language of nature [9:34] Dealing with difficult childhood experiences through writing [9:51] Traversing the intersection of fiction and memoir [8:18] Using writing rules and constraints to build a world on the page [12:15] The workshop that broke Jeannine wide open [15:50] The risk of writing from the perspective of a child narrator [22:52] Writing about motherhood and being in one’s body [27:22] Jeannine’s story of the growth of her substack and advice for building a profitable digital newsletter [41:13] Connect with Jeannine: Substack Facebook Instagram X/Twitter Connect with Estelle: Watch Estelle’s episode #81 with Maggie Smith (mentioned in this episode). The Art of Shaping a Compelling Story https://estelleserasmus.com/81-the-art-of-shaping-a-compelling-story-featuring-maggie-smith/ ​​FREE PITCHING GUIDE: Find out more about this episode at https://estelleserasmus.com/podcast. You also get a free pitching guide if you sign up for her newsletter. Sign up for Estelle’s Personal Essay Class for Writer’s Digest https://www.writersonlineworkshops.com/courses/writing-the-personal-essay-101-fundamentals Get Her Book Writing That Gets Noticed: Find Your Voice, Become a Better Storyteller, Get Published: https://rb.gy/5ihwp0 Order Her Audiobook: https://shorturl.at/4uG2P Sign up for her Substack https://estelleserasmus.substack.com (with craft advice and writing opportunities). Paid subscribers receive opportunities for pitch reviews, plus bonus clips from Freelance Writing Direct guests Sign up for Her Class at NYU Writing About Your Life Through Memoir, Essays and Articles https://www.sps.nyu.edu/professional-pathways/faculty/1068-estelle-erasmus.html Join her event at NYU on September 16th with Liz Elting, philanthropist and author of Dream Big and Win: Imbuing Memoir into Your Non-Fiction Book: When How-To Advice Just Isn’t Enough for An Author https://events.nyu.edu/event/327539-imbuing-memoir-into-your-non-fiction-book-when?fbclid=IwY2xjawFEnWNleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHayZ7DcHV5hE1dWDKx_7mxrzKunkeCmOLP5ncv5leyBYaYgN9nVARmaKGQ_aem_rc1K8aXMTNaDPdJ8t-QjCA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/EstelleSErasmus TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@EstelleSErasmus
    Show more Show less
    50 mins
  • #102 Writing Scenes Shaped Around Sensory Experience Featuring Rona Maynard

    #102 Writing Scenes Shaped Around Sensory Experience Featuring Rona Maynard
    Aug 29 2024
    Rona Maynard found happiness at 65—a story she tells in her new memoir Starter Dog: My Path to Joy, Belonging and Loving This World. She first broke into print at 14 with a short story about bullying and still receives fan mail from teens who are reading it in class. Rona capped a stellar career in magazines with a decade at the helm of Chatelaine, Canada’s leading magazine for women. Her editor’s column won a loyal following. When she disclosed a struggle with depression, she helped kickstart a national conversation about mental health. After Chatelaine, Rona had to learn to unwind—and found that her best teacher was a rescue mutt who had received his basic training in a prison. She has been married more than 50 years and is a firm believer that road trips go better with a dog in the back seat. In This Episode: The important step Rona took while looking for her next chapter [3:19] How she tests the waters by sharing mini stories on Facebook [5:36] Giving your reader a reason to turn the page [7:48] Why beautiful writing isn’t enough [8:07] Living in the moment with a dog and how Rona applied that to her life [9:02] Inviting readers into the book with your sense of mission [10:12] Working as an editor-in-chief at Chatelaine and what that showed her about herself [11:20] Discovering what makes her day glow and finding purpose [13:01] Mining the conflict in your story [15:00] Rona’s advice for organizing your writing and effectively using tools like Scrivener [16:15] Writing your stories, even when the memories are hard [29:04] Why she doesn’t do the “vomit” draft [31:49] Connect with Rona Substack: https://ronamaynard.substack.com/ Website:http://www.ronamaynard.com Connect with Estelle: Sign up for Estelle’s September 5th free Zoom AMA with journalist Aly Walansky from 4:30-5:30 PM ET, where they will discuss pitching, publishing, grabbing an editor’s attention, working with editors, and getting noticed by pr people, and so much more. Email Estelle at freelancewritingdirect@gmail.com with your question for the AMA and to secure your spot. Watch Estelle’s episode #99 with Aly Walansky https://estelleserasmus.com/99-notes-from-a-lifestyle-journalist-with-10k-substack-subscribers/ Watch Estelle’s episode #38 with Cheryl Strayed https://estelleserasmus.com/38-cheryl-strayed-on-writing-and-tiny-beautiful-things/ ​​FREE PITCHING GUIDE: Find out more about this episode at https://estelleserasmus.com/podcast. You also get a free pitching guide if you sign up for her newsletter. Sign up for Estelle’s Personal Essay Class for Writer’s Digest https://www.writersonlineworkshops.com/courses/writing-the-personal-essay-101-fundamentals See Estelle’s latest blog post with news https://estelleserasmus.com/a-few-pieces-of-exciting-news/ Get Her Book Writing That Gets Noticed: Find Your Voice, Become a Better Storyteller, Get Published: https://rb.gy/5ihwp0 Pre-Order Her Audiobook: https://shorturl.at/4uG2P Sign up for her Substack https://estelleserasmus.substack.com (with craft advice and writing opportunities). Paid subscribers receive opportunities for pitch reviews, plus bonus clips from Freelance Writing Direct guests Estelle’s latest substack post on Micro Memoir https://estelleserasmus.substack.com/p/if-you-are-writing-a-micro-memoir Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/EstelleSErasmus TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@EstelleSErasmus
    Show more Show less
    35 mins
  • #101 The Makings of a “Hysterical” Story Featuring Elissa Bassist

    #101 The Makings of a “Hysterical” Story Featuring Elissa Bassist
    Aug 22 2024

    Elissa Bassist is the editor of the “Funny Women” column on The Rumpus and the author of the award-deserving memoir Hysterical. As a founding contributor to The Rumpus, she’s written cultural and personal criticism since the website launched in 2009. Most recently her writing appears in her newsletter, Tragedy Plus Time. Elissa teaches humor writing at The New School, 92NY, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, and elsewhere, and she is probably her therapist’s favorite. Her next book is INSIDE JOKES: A Comedy and Creativity Guide for All People, coming in 2026.



    In This Episode:

    • Writing with humor on heavy topics aka “traumedy” [3:08]

    • Why Elissa wrote Hysterical [4:11]

    • The Importance of external validation [4:41]

    • The value of researching her book and how Elissa did it [6:28]

    • Cultivating an external world for your book in the midst of great interiority [8:30]

    • Why its essential to work with an agent and editor who understands you [12:01]

    • Standing up to your editor and agents and why you might need to break up with them [12:57]

    • The benefits of stalking (and writing about) your obsessions [18:16]

    • An unusual horror film that put her life in perspective [21:39]

    • Explaining why the footnote was the essay [23:24]

    • The life affirming advice she received from Cheryl Strayed [25:26]

    • Elissa’s role at The Rumpus [26:14]

    • Her next big project [31:45]



    Connect with Elissa

    Website | Classes | Newsletters

    Twitter | Instagram | Facebook



    Elissa’s viral piece on the Human Centipede for The Paris Review

    https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2012/11/01/the-human-centipede-or-how-to-move-to-new-york/



    Connect with Estelle:

    Watch Estelle’s episode #38 with Cheryl Strayed (who gave the advice to Elissa she mentions in Episode #101)

    https://estelleserasmus.com/38-cheryl-strayed-on-writing-and-tiny-beautiful-things/

    ​​FREE PITCHING GUIDE: Find out more about this episode at

    https://estelleserasmus.com/podcast. You also get a free pitching guide if you sign up for her newsletter.

    Sign up for Estelle’s Personal Essay Class for Writer’s Digest

    https://www.writersonlineworkshops.com/courses/writing-the-personal-essay-101-fundamentals

    See Estelle’s latest blog post with news

    https://estelleserasmus.com/a-few-pieces-of-exciting-news/



    Get Her Book

    Writing That Gets Noticed: Find Your Voice, Become a Better Storyteller, Get Published: https://rb.gy/5ihwp0

    Order Her Audiobook:

    https://shorturl.at/4uG2P

    Sign up for her Substack https://estelleserasmus.substack.com (with craft advice and writing opportunities). Paid subscribers receive opportunities for pitch reviews, plus bonus clips from Freelance Writing Direct guests

    Estelle’s latest substack post on Micro Memoir

    https://estelleserasmus.substack.com/p/if-you-are-writing-a-micro-memoir

    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/EstelleSErasmus

    TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@EstelleSErasmus
    Show more Show less
    37 mins
Leadership Economics Personal Success
Show more Show less

What listeners say about Freelance Writing Direct: Conversations with authors, journalists, agents, novelists, memoirists, niche writers, agents, publishers, writing teachers, assigning editors and media experts.

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.com reviews

Amazon reviews
No Reviews are Available