Listen:
In this solo recap episode, I reflect on a year shaped by creative momentum, personal loss, and professional growth. I share how losing my beloved father, Jerome (Jerry) Sobel to Alzheimer’s reframed my relationship to time, work, and my own energies and plans.
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- My dad during happier times when the Alzheimer’s was just starting to take hold.
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- The story I wrote about my dad for the New York Times
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- When I was able to see him after the COVID restrictions were lifted at his facility.
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- My dad, daughter and mom when my daughter was a lot younger. We all were.
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- Dad in his working in the city days.
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- Mom and dad.
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- Their engagement photo.
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- He loved being outdoors and was once an athlete and ballplayer.
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- At my wedding with my father-in-law Jacques.
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- Going into the city to work with Dad.
I revisit major moments from the year, including my TEDx talk How to Get Noticed in Your Writing and Beyond, students publishing in outlets such as Modern Love, Brevity, The Boston Globe, The Kenyon Review, Audacity, and Business Insider, and what the shifting personal essay landscape means for writers right now.
Here is a post I wrote about writing my TEDx Talk for Substack.
I also covered it in this episode of the podcast, Shaping a TEDx Talk That Gets Seen.
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- With Tyler the TEDx committee member who helped make it the best experience ever.
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- On the red dot at TEDx Boston College.
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- Talking the talk, with a revelation from my experience working with Thomas the Tank Engine.
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- Thomas the Tank Engine, the subject of my TEDx Talk.
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- With the conductor at the licensing show back in the 1990s.
I also talk about meaningful family travel, including a trip to Fiji, where my in laws retired last year.
Our family in Fiji in July this year.
Looking ahead, I share plans for 2026, including reaching the milestone 200th episode of this podcast, upcoming webinars, expanded teaching with NYU and Writer’s Digest, and the ongoing process of working on my memoir.
In This Episode
- Momentum through teaching, publishing, and consistency
- The shrinking personal essay market and why strategic placement matters
- Using AI as a support tool for brainstorming and structure
- Balancing accountability in long term memoir work
Substacks Mentioned
Hannah Sward Summer of Men
Her episode: #122 Crafting a Tsunami of Transformation in Memoir
Rona Maynard Amazement Seeker
Her episode: #102 Writing Scenes Shaped Around Sensory Experience
Watch on YouTube
Get More from Estelle
NYU (Zoom), 6-week course: Writing About Your Life Through Memoir, Essays & Articles. Learn to beat writer’s block, shape a powerful narrative, pitch editors, and walk away with a ready-to-publish essay or memoir pages. Find out more information and register here.
Private small-group memoir class: January and March are sold out. The next 6-week session starts May 2026. Email me at freelancewritingdirect@gmail.
Substack Post: How to Pitch Slate: Advice, Ideas and Examples For Writing Essays and Articles From My NYU Editor-on-Call Event: If you missed my Editor-on-Call session with Slate’s Rebecca Onion, I put together a recap with everything writers need to know—rates, story types, what they’re commissioning, and the pitch mistakes editors see most often.
Upcoming Webinar with Writer’s Digest
Amplifying the Echo Effect in Memoir and Essays, February 26th, 1:00-2:30 pm ET
If you want to understand how patterns, callbacks, and emotional echoes can deepen your work, join me for this brand new interactive craft webinar.
Learn more and register here.
Article Highlight: In Provoked Magazine
I wrote When Your Colleague Isn’t a Friend. She’s a Frenemy.
This piece, one of my most personal and vulnerable ones in a while, explores the subtle ways professional relationships can undermine us, why we tell ourselves it is personal, and how to recognize what is really going on. This story came from an experience that stayed with me, and writing it helped me see it with more clarity.
Here is a line from the piece that captures the heart of it:
“In the face of her snark, I became a lesser version of myself and didn’t deliver a more characteristic-of-me clap back. And felt like crap about it.”
If you have ever dealt with someone who smiled to your face while undermining you, or felt the sting of being minimized when you were simply trying to shine, I think you will relate to this one.
Read the full essay here (and please feel free to leave a comment and share it). We are all in this together.
Publications to Celebrate
- My former student Tess Clarkson worked on this essay over several years. As Tess puts it:
“I wrote a version of it several years ago, pitched it, and got a rejection. Estelle reviewed it and gave me notes. I reworked the essay and let it sit for over a year. I picked it back up, changed parts, pitched it again, and sold it.”
It’s a juicy read and a great reminder that publication is often about timing, revision, and returning to the work with fresh eyes. It may even spark an idea of your own.
Designing A Sex Room Didn’t Lead To More Sex. But Here’s Why I’d Do It Again Anyway. (AARP’s The Girlfriend)
- My former student Ellen Acconcia published this powerful and poignant braided essay, Tornados which discusses mental illness and it’s effect on families, in the literary publication, The August Drift and Dribble.
My Latest Craft Essay
Open Secrets Magazine featured my newest craft essay, “How to Make Concessions When Writing Confessions.”
In it, I explore how personal essayists can strike the right balance between honesty and discernment—what to reveal, what to withhold, and how thoughtful concessions can actually elevate the emotional power of your story. This is a resource for those polishing those end of year essays. Read the full piece here:
Explore More
- 📘 Writing That Gets Noticed – Buy the book | Audiobook
- 🎤 Watch Estelle’s TEDx Talk: How to Get Noticed in Your Writing and Beyond
- 📰 Subscribe on Substack: https://estelleserasmus.substack.com
Latest posts: “How To Pitch Slate, Why Every Memoir Needs the Echo Effect, When Writers Are the Ones Blocking the Page: 6 Ways to Move Forward (and An Offer); Stop Counting Your Words. Start Shaping Your Story” and “How to Get Published in Cosmopolitan or Seventeen” - 🎧 More episodes: Freelance Writing Direct Podcast
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 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’s served as editor-in-chief of five national magazines.
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Wishing you a happy New Year from 0ur Havanese Rose.
