Q&A With Estelle Erasmus

Estelle Erasmus is an award-winning journalist, writing coach & author of the nonfiction book Writing That Gets Noticed which is available now wherever books are sold. Estelle has written for over 150 publications, including The New York Times, The Week, Next Avenue, WIRED, The Independent, The Washington Post, Salon, AARP: The Magazine and more. Estelle is a TEDx speaker, and the host of the award-winning podcast Freelance Writing Direct, which has over 200 episodes. She has even appeared on Good Morning America, Fox News with Ernie Anastos, & has had her articles mentioned on the daytime talk show The View! Estelle is also an adjunct writing professor at NYU!

Q: Welcome to Book Notions Estelle! Would you please give a brief description of Writing That Gets Noticed? 

A: Writing That Gets Noticed: Find Your Voice, Become a Better Storyteller, Get Published is really the book I wish I’d had when I was starting out. It is full of my tips, tricks, and strategies and takes writers through the whole process, from finding ideas and stories to crafting personal essays and articles, pitching editors so you don’t get ghosted, writing tantalizing titles, getting published, dealing with editor etiquette and the vagaries of contracts, and finding credible sources and sites for research. I also cover how to deal with rejection and make it work for you, and where to find community. Throughout, I share examples from my own writing and from my students, because I think it’s much easier to understand a technique when you can actually see it at work. 

Q: How long did it take you to write Writing That Gets Noticed & why was now the right time to write the book?

A: I feel as if I compiled the material my whole professional career, but I really started using it when I began teaching at NYU in the early aughts, when I focused on print magazines. Later, I added material specific to writing for digital publications and taught that to my students when I resumed teaching at NYU in 2019, right before the pandemic.  I’d been an editor-in-chief of five national magazines and had been teaching writers for years. I kept seeing the same questions come up: How do I know if I have an idea that will get me noticed? How do I find my voice? How do I get an editor’s attention? How do I know where to pitch? I wanted to put what I’d learned on both sides of the desk into one book.

I also added Estelle’s Edge, which is my specific, hard-earned wisdom on every aspect of publishing that I cover in the chapters. For example, one of my Estelle’s Edge tips in the chapter “The Art (and Arc) of Writing a Personal Essay” says, “Pretend you are telling your story to a friend. If after every sentence you wonder what something smelled like or looked like, add more detail and description.” 

Q: What are the core lessons you hope readers focus on from Writing That Gets Noticed? 

A: One of the biggest is learning how to “mine your life for ideas.” We all have our own experiences, expertise, obsessions, and ways of looking at the world that can become material for our writing. In the book, I give writers a map they can use to uncover those ideas and figure out which ones have the potential to become stories.

I also focus a lot on finding and honing your voice. I think of a writer’s voice as being like a singer’s voice. You can recognize a great singer from the first few notes because their voice has its own character and energy. Your writing voice should do the same thing. It reflects your personality, your experiences, your attitude, your rhythms, and your particular way of looking at the world. That’s what makes an editor, and ultimately a reader, want to keep reading.

And I want writers to realize that getting published isn’t some mysterious process. I demystify it in my book. There are skills you can learn, from finding the right angle to crafting a pitch that makes an editor want to read more. I give readers practical steps and real pitching examples in my “Pitch Clinic” section, so they can take what they learn and apply it immediately. And revision is a huge part of it, which is why I have a chapter on revising and editing yourself. The first draft is rarely the final story.

Q: Estelle, I’m very impressed that you can juggle writing, being a writing coach, a professor and an award-winning journalist! What wisdom have you learned that anyone wanting to do one or more of those careers should know? 

A: I try to stay curious. That has served me throughout my career. As an editor, I was always looking for the idea or the hook nobody else had thought of yet. As a journalist, I’m looking for the question that will get me somewhere interesting. And as a teacher, I’m always learning from my students, too. That’s why my students know that in my writing classes, I’m always adding new ideas and threads for us to follow.

One of the ideas I come back to in my teaching is the old saying: “If you give someone a fish, you feed them for a day. But if you teach them to fish, they can feed themselves for their whole lives.” My students have been published in The New York Times, NYT Modern Love, The Washington Post, The Cut, Roxane Gay’s The Audacity, The Kenyon Review, The Boston Globe, LA Times, Newsday, and more.

I also believe strongly in relationships. Publishing can seem enormous when you’re trying to break in, but it’s really a series of relationships you build over time. Don’t be afraid to ask for opportunities. And always aim high. I can’t tell you how many students have told me they would never have submitted to the contest they won, the publication that accepted their piece, or the anthology that included their work if I hadn’t urged them to broaden their thinking and reach for the stars.

Q: Would you say that your journalism writing has helped when it comes to writing the book? 

A: Definitely. Journalism taught me to be resourceful, find the strongest angle, ask better questions, and always think about the reader. My years as an editor also made me ruthless about revision. I can love a sentence and still know I have to kill my darlings! I brought that editor’s eye to Writing That Gets Noticed. 

Some of those same lessons became part of my TEDx talk, How to Get Noticed in Your Writing and Beyond. I talk about the importance of specificity, getting to the point, and circling back so your story resonates for the reader. Those are skills I learned through journalism, and they’re also at the heart of how I teach writers to make their work stronger, so it gets noticed.

Q: You have appeared on Good Morning America, Fox News with Ernie Anastos, & has had her articles mentioned on the daytime talk show The View! What was it like appearing on Good Morning America & Fox News and meeting the hosts? How does it feel knowing that your articles have been mentioned on The View? 

A: It is always exciting! I love doing television for the immediacy of it. Television is so different from writing because everything happens so quickly and there’s no opportunity to revise what you just said. But I once studied acting and opera, so I feel I’m a natural performer. In the case of Good Morning America, we taped the segment that was used in the episode, so that was fun, too, and a little less nerve-wracking, although I really do love the live aspect of it.

Seeing something I’ve written takes on a life beyond the original article is always a thrill. That’s what happened when my work was discussed on The View more than once. You write something at your desk, send it out into the world, and sometimes it travels much farther than you ever expected.

Q: Estelle, your articles for The New York Times & Washington Post have gone viral globally! I’m so happy to hear that and a Congratulations are in order. How did it feel with having over 500 comments on her NYT peace How To Bullyproof Your Child? How does it feel having your work featured in so many famous publications?

A: “How to Bullyproof Your Child” was one of those pieces where I knew I had tapped into something people cared deeply about. It became one of the most emailed and most popular stories on The New York Times site for several weeks. And the editor answered my pitch, with the title in the subject line (something I advise students to do), that same day. Later, watching that conversation unfold in the hundreds of comments was fascinating.

I’ve now written for more than 150 publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, AARP: The Magazine, The Ethel, The Girlfriend, WIRED, Electric Literature, Newsweek, Salon, and many others, and I still get excited about a byline. I don’t think that feeling ever goes away. At least I hope it doesn’t!

Q: Are you currently writing your next book and can you reveal any details? If you were to ever write fiction instead of nonfiction, what would your first fiction book be, a mystery, a romance etc.?  

A: Yes! I’m working on a narrative nonfiction book that draws on my years working in women’s magazines and as a dating expert, and combines memoir, cultural commentary, and reporting. It looks at what women were told about dating, love, beauty, and worth, and what happened when some of those messages collided with real life.  In fact, I have a Substack Live series called Musings on Magazines: The Story Behind the Story, where I have guests join me to talk about the magazine world of the 1990s and early aughts. 

And I would absolutely write fiction. In fact, I already have an idea based on a situation that arose when I worked in magazines.

Q: Estelle, would you please provide your social media links so the readers of the blog and I may follow you and your work?

A: Thank you. 

My website is https://estelleserasmus.com 

Substack: https://estelleserasmus.substack.com

Freelance Writing Direct Podcast: My award-winning podcast featuring conversations with authors, editors, agents, and publishing professionals about the craft and business of writing https://estelleserasmus.com/podcast (also on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube)

TEDx Talk: How to Get Noticed in Your Writing and Beyond https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpcWmjpzSIQ

Instagram: https://instagram.com/EstelleSErasmus

Facebook: https://facebook.com/Estelle.Sobel.Erasmus

TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@estelleserasmus

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FreelanceWritingDirect

Threads: https://threads.com/EstelleSErasmus

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/estelleserasmus.bsky.social