Listen:
It is such a pleasure to bring Lisa Cooper Ellison to you. As we discuss in this episode, we met for the first time in person at the Hippocamp conference in 2016, where we were both speakers, and Lisa asked me to breakfast. I was so impressed by her and her kindness and expertise then, and her impact, insight and writing wisdom has only increased over the years.
In This Episode
• How Lisa became a trauma-informed writing coach after she dealt with a debilitating health issue [3:54]
• The emotional impacts of writing about tough topics [10:21]
• How the nervous system is impacted when writing about trauma [11:27]
• The meaning making process; owning our meltdowns and moments [12:13]
• Estelle’s experience with writing about her ectopic pregnancy and how it required emotional distance and time [12:47]
• How writers can protect themselves and practice self-care while writing difficult stories about themselves or loved ones [14:06]
• Lisa’s experience with writing her own memoir and being a volcano writer [20:34]
• Lisa’s article in HuffPost Personal on emotional flashbacks and defining them [21:00]
• How Lisa protects her own mental health through somatic processing [29:56]
• Why a beat sheet is your BFF for structuring your memoir, and understanding your book’s essential questions [37:59]
Watch on YouTube
About Lisa
Lisa Cooper Ellison is an author, speaker, trauma-informed writing coach, and host of the Writing Your Resilience podcast. She works and writes at the intersection of storytelling and healing, and combines her personal experiences with suicide loss and CPTSD with her clinical training to help writers turn tough experiences into art. Her essays and stories have appeared on Risk! and in The New York Times, HuffPost, Hippocampus Literary Magazine, and Kenyon Review Online, among others.
Connect with Lisa
Website
Instagram
LinkedIn
Facebook
YouTube
Lisa’s article on HuffPost Personal
Making the Smallest Little Mistake Filled Me With Terror: Then 2 Little Words Changed My Life
Estelle’s episode Writing That Gets Noticed on Lisa’s podcast Writing Your Resilience
People mentioned who had episodes on Estelle’s podcast
Linda Lowen, episode #31 Getting Your Writing Career in Gear When on a Tight
Jane Friedman, episode #105 A Look Inside Publishing: Hybrid, Audiobooks, AI & More
Minna Dubin, episode #61 All About Mom Rage
Estelle’s article in Brevity Don’t Blow Up Your Life for a Byline
Connect with Estelle
Get My Book: Writing That Gets Noticed, named a Best Book for Writers by Poets & Writers Magazine
Sign up for my 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. Check out my post on the Editor of The Cut. And my latest called Let’s Tally Those Tantalizing Titles, where I give paid subscribers an opportunity to for me to work with them on a title.
Sign up for my Personal Essay Class for Writer’s Digest
Follow Estelle
Where I’m From Poem
In other news, I was a part of the amazing series “Where I’m From” helmed by the fabulous Alyson Shelton. Check out my episode below on YouTube, and here are the rest of the series, with so many writers I love and admire. Here is the poem on Instagram.
This is my full poem:
Where I’m From #163
By Estelle Erasmus
Inspired by George Ella Lyon
I’m from a pink polyester pantsuit, sewn in Home Ec,
worn in the fashion show,
surrounded by a sea of plaid.
from Love’s Baby Soft and Bonne Bell Lip Smackers.
I am from the split level, Long Island suburban enclave,
with a plastic-covered couch we were not allowed to sit on,
running with a posse of latch key kids,
trampling carefully tended gardens with our KEDs.
I am from blowing at fuzzy Pussy Willows to see the soft silver tufts,
that feels like fur, soar;
the ones left, start to bloom, insulated from the cold.
I’m from focusing on education to get ahead and reading fantasy books in my room,
to escape the chaos of family drama.
I am from “make sure you are back home in time for dinner”, and “there’s no such thing as boring, there’s only boring people.”
I’m Jewish, from Poland and Hungary, formed out of the DNA of Holocaust-surviving “greeners” (my mother, Miriam, and her parents),
and my dad, Jerry, and his parents, here for two generations.
I’m from Cholent, a magical stew, served only when sick.
And Bells (layers of cake, topped with delectable cream frosting) sourced by my dad from a bakery in Queens.
Also, known oddly, as Frogs.
I’m from lying on the grass with my sister and watching the clouds form,
competing in “staircase Olympics”,
and playing “concoction”, mixing together combinations like pickle juice and ketchup.
When we were close.
I’m from Monopoly games that my dad won, and got animated during.
Numbed by the rigors of advanced Alzheimer’s, he is never to be animated again.
I’m from the lamp topped with figurines of a boy and a girl (siblings we imagined) in a half embrace; we always put a penny on the boy’s outstretched palm as a reminder of the togetherness of family, and my treasured birthday card from my boisterous maternal grandma Genia, who fled a war-torn country to save her family.
In the card she wrote, “People should be kind to you. You can achieve this with your own personality.”
Prescient advice to live by from a true survivor.
