#163 Writing the Unresolved Story: Trying and Telling the Unvarnished Truth Featuring Chloé Caldwell

What happens when your life unravels up in the middle of writing your book — your marriage ends, fertility treatments stop, your identity shifts, and you have to rewrite the story you thought you were living?

In this episode, Estelle Erasmus interviews acclaimed author Chloe Caldwell about her new book, TRYING, a radically honest, formally innovative memoir about fertility, longing, divorce, sexuality, and choosing yourself. Chloe opens up about writing through infertility, divorce, queerness, and identity, and how her real life reshaped the story she thought she was telling.

In this episode:

• Writing a memoir while still living through it [3:34]

• The shame and silence surrounding infertility [8:37]

• Trusting intuition and reclaiming personal truth [20:33]

• Finding humor and craft in heartbreak [25:38]

• Ending a story that's still unfolding [39:25]

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/T442Ly6yp0E

Chloé Caldwell is the author of the novella Women, the memoir The Red Zone, and the essay collections I'll Tell You in Person and Legs Get Led Astray. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Vogue, Bon Appétit, the Cut, MSNBC, Autostraddle, Longreads, and Nylon and in anthologies including Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York and Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class and Sluts. She offers writing support at scrappyliterary.com. Caldwell lives in Hudson, New York.

Connect with Chloe

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/scrappyliterary

Upcoming class: Writing Chaos In Real Time

Upcoming Class: Writing Divorce

Scrappy Literary for a personalized call and writing support

Check out Estelle's mention of Chloe in her TEDx Talk How to Get Noticed in Your Writing and Beyond https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpcWmjpzSIQ

Get More from Estelle:

Sign up for her 6 week Zoom NYU Course: Writing About Your Life Through Memoir, Essays and Articles

https://www.sps.nyu.edu/courses/WRIT1-CE9800-writing-about-your-life-through-memoir-essays-and-articles.html

New Substack post: Why Every Memoir Needs the "Echo Effect". https://estelleserasmus.substack.com/p/why-every-memoir-needs-the-echo-effect

📬 Newsletter + FREE Pitching Guide Find out more about this episode and get Estelle's free pitching guide when you sign up for her newsletter: https://estelleserasmus.com/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.

Explore More:

• 📘 Writing That Gets Noticed – Buy the book | Audiobook

• 📰 Subscribe on Substack: https://estelleserasmus.substack.com Latest posts: "Why Every Memoir Needs the "Echo Effect". When Writers Are the Ones Blocking the Page: 6 Ways to Move Forward (and An Offer); "How to Get Published in Cosmopolitan or Seventeen"

• 🎧 More episodes: Freelance Writing Direct Podcast

• Read Estelle's latest article How to Use the Internet to Become Your Own Private Investigator (Next Avenue/PBS)

Follow Estelle:

• Instagram: @EstelleSErasmus

• TikTok: @EstelleSErasmus

• Twitter: @EstelleSErasmus

• BlueSky: @estelleserasmus.bsky.social