Hi pals,

It’s been awhile. Let’s catch up:

A brief excerpt from my MIP (memoir-in-progress)

Denver put distance between me and the traumatic montage that played on a loop in my head. My father telling me my mother was gone, my father sobbing, my father in his office telling my aunts and uncles on the phone, more sobbing. Denver put a thousand miles between me and all the artifacts left of her: the Easter decorations that Dad wouldn’t take down for years, the pamphlet from the botanical garden they’d went to the day before she died, all her clothes, her grave. But I had told the truth to my therapist: I did not go to Denver to escape. I went to reckon.

Book recommendations

The 2000s Made Me Gay by Grace Perry. This part-cultural analysis, part-memoir was a lesson in queer media of the early to mid-aughts. It led me to reflect on the ways I did and did not see queer representation when I was growing up, how that shaped my beliefs and behaviors, and gave me new language to describe those experiences.

Long Live The Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden. One of the best memoirs I’ve read in awhile. Beautiful, inspiring writing. Both accessible and exceedingly smart. The detail with which Madden recalls the past is impressive.

Other WIPs (works-in-progress)

I started work on a short story a couple days ago. I haven’t tried to write one, or even felt inspired to write one, really, since my freshman year of college (in that story, I wrote about a nurse and a poet undergoing an operation where they traded brains. It was very tortured-poets-department).

I’m inspired now because there are aspects of my life that I can’t write about, not in nonfiction. Alas, I turn to fiction so that it can, in some way, live outside of my body.

The story is about family estrangement.

Recent publications

I’ve had a few personal essays published over the last month or so (note: I do not get to pick the final headlines. lol).

Doctors Dismissed My Symptoms For Years, So I Did Too. Then I Got a Shocking Diagnosis in Scary Mommy

From Messy Chaos to Domestic Bliss: The Simple Fix That Changed Everything in PrideSource

I Was Scared to Come Out to My Dad and Brought My Sister With Me For Support. His Reaction Surprised Me in Business Insider (linking to the Yahoo posting because it’s not behind a paywall)

Upcoming class I’m teaching!!

Pitch 101: How to Get Published in Top Magazines and Newspapers

Class is on Thursday, April 3rd from 6pm-9pm EST. You’ll learn:

• How to write a good pitch (including a captivating headline)

• What a successful pitch actually looks like (from my own archives)

• The difference between a general topic and a specific story

• How to scout out potential outlets for your pitch

• What the entire process, from ideation, to pitch, to acceptance, to publication looks like

• Helpful newsletters and other pitching resources - Writing for your dream outlets *is* possible!

I’ll also be showing examples of my own pitches that have sold, so you’ll have a solid template to work off of. Find more details and registration at the link above :)

Where else can you find me??

If you don’t already, follow me on Instagram and TikTok ellewarrenwrites. I’m lowkey ~creating content~ about writing/the writer life, grief, mental health, and whatever else I feel like. Lol

Until next time (who can say when?),

Elle