Listen:
Before we continue with our regularly scheduled program, I want to let everyone know that I will be on Wade Rouse/aka Viola Shipman’s Facebook Live Wine & Words with Wade today at 6:30 pm ET. We will dish about everything and I’m such an admirer of Wade and his work. You can see him on the podcast in episode #104– he writes it all– memoir and novels. and has a new book coming out called The Page Turnerthat I can’t wait to read. Tune in from the Viola Shipman Facebook Page. Would love to see you!
Also, check below to secure your spot for my 6-week Zoom personal essay class in May, now open.
An Exciting Episode
In This Episode
- How the Pandemic pushed Athena into writing essays
- The extreme loneliness epidemic in our country
- The influence of her fanfiction fixation on Athena’s writing and ability to daydream a new reality
- How Athena explored loneliness in throughlines of grief, the concept of a “split self”, and journals
- Why she used a multi-tiered braided essay in the collection
- How she used the vessel of the body to play with the fear of the heart
- Athena’s editorial work with Fourth Genre and Split Lip Press
- Her use of intention and ritual as a roadmap for bringing romance to fruition
- Keys to figuring out the right format for your stories, when deciding between memoir or a memoir in essays
- Advice for identifying a strong throughline in your essay collection
- Why Athena now values her loneliness and moments of isolation as a tool in her tool kit
Order the Loneliness Files on Estelle’s Bookshop
Watch on YouTube
About Athena
Athena Dixon is the author of essay collections The Incredible Shrinking Woman and The Loneliness File and her work appears in publications such as Harper’s Bazaar, Shenandoah, Grub Street, Narratively, and Lit Hub among others. She is a Consulting Editor for Fourth Genre and the Nonfiction/Hybrid Editor for Split/Lip Press.
Connect with Athena
Episode mentioned with Jeannine Ouellette
#103 Launching into New Dimensions with Embodied Writing
Connect with Estelle Erasmus
Her latest substack Post: My Predictions for Publishing in 2025
Apply to be on Freelance Writing Direct in a coaching episode: email [email protected] and state three of the issues you are dealing with that you would like Estelle’s help with.
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Sign up for Estelle’s Substack(for craft advice and writing opportunities). Paid subscribers receive opportunities for pitch reviews, plus bonus clips from Freelance Writing Direct guests. Check out her post on the Editor of The Cut.
Sign up for her Personal Essay Class for Writer’s Digest
Student Work
So happy to see my Zoom class student Linda Maltz Wolff’s fabulous and humorous piece on grandmothers in The Boston Globe. Brava! (Gift Link)
And my former student Rochelle (who has her poignant piece she published in Next Avenue/PBS cited in my book), Unmuting a Brother-Sister Relationship One Chord at a Time, had a Tiny Love Story, called Gathering Valuables in the New York Times (Gift Link).
NOTE: Estelle’s private small Zoom classes are sold out for March 2025 (they’ve been sold out since November 2024). Her next personal essay 6 week Zoom class will start in May. Email her at [email protected] to secure your spot.
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