Freelance Writing Direct chats with author, Amanda McCracken about turning a viral essay into memoir plus, writing longing, getting an agent, building a platform, and the grit behind landing a book deal.…
Peter Mountford joins Freelance Writing Direct for a chat about narrative tension, moral pressure, revising earlier work with a teacher’s eye, and why a single charged moment can sometimes move readers more than an entire story arc.…
Freelance Writing Direct chats with Tova Mirvis about the slow burn of narrative tension, the emotional undercurrents that drive fiction forward, and the discipline required to revise toward clarity and depth.…
Estelle Erasmus chats with Bob Eckstein and Nava Atlas about Inspired by Cats: Writers and Their Mews(es) and how a playful literary idea evolved into a fully realized illustrated book.…
Estelle Erasmus chats with filmmaker and memoirist Gayle Kirschenbaum and her mother, Mildred Kirschenbaum, about Gayle’s mother-daughter memoir and the long arc of a relationship shaped by criticism, silence, and survival.…
Freelance Writing Direct chats with Writers on Writing’s Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about her move into noir, her collection Pool Fishing, and creating characters that linger long after the story ends.…
Freelance Writing Direct chats with legendary memoirist Abigail Thomas about trusting the unknown, finding shape in memory, and allowing surprise to guide your work.…
Freelance Writing Direct chats with Melissa Fraterrigo, award winning author of The Perils of Girlhood, about growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, the fears that follow girls into adulthood, Judy Blume, Madonna, and how writing can open conversations we were never taught to have.…
Freelance Writing Direct speaks with memoirist Heather Sweeney about how she shaped her memoir from years of life on the move, how she found clarity in a linear structure, what she learned to leave out, and how she discovered the moment her story really begins.…
Leslie B. Blanchard joins Freelance Writing Direct for a conversation about developing her New York Times Modern Love essay under Estelle’s guidance, finding the emotional center of a grief story, clarifying the negotiation at the heart of the piece, shaping structure through revision, strengthening metaphor, understanding editorial expectations, and discovering what the story truly wanted to say.…
Freelance Writing Direct chats with Alysia Abbott about Fairyland, adapting memoir to film, and the craft choices behind telling a tender, complex father–daughter story.…
