What happens in your first five pages determines everything. Itâs where agents decide to keep reading or pass. Itâs where readers lean in or drift away. And itâs often where strong memoirs fall short, not because the story isnât compelling, but because the opening isnât yet doing the heavy lifting.
In this dynamic and interactive live webinar, award-winning journalist, editor, and TEDx speaker Estelle Erasmus will show you exactly how to command attention from the very first line. Drawing on her experience as a magazine editor-in-chief, NYU instructor, and host of the top-ranked Freelance Writing Direct podcast, Estelle will break down what agents and editors are truly looking for in those opening pages and how to deliver it.
Youâll learn when a prologue strengthens your story and when it holds it back. Youâll also learn how to start in the action, establish a clear throughline, and create immediate emotional investment. Estelle will also introduce key elements from her signature teaching, including the use of strategic detail, narrative momentum, and what she calls the âEcho Effect,â where meaning deepens through carefully layered repetition and emotional shifts.
This live webinar goes beyond theory. Youâll engage in interactive exercises designed to strengthen your opening pages in real time, and youâll hear Estelle analyze examples from successful memoirs and from her podcast conversations with published authors. By the end, youâll leave with a revised opening and a clear roadmap for making your first five pages impossible to ignore.
This live webinar will be interactive with plenty of time for questions and answers.
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Meet the instructor
Estelle Erasmus
Estelle Erasmus is an award-winning writing professor at NYU, a former magazine editor-in-chief of five national consumer publications, and the author of Writing That Gets Noticed: Find Your Voice, Become a Better Storyteller, Get Published, named a Best Book for Writers by Poets & Writers. She is a 2025 TEDx speaker whose talk focuses on commanding attention in writing and beyond.
Estelle is also the host of the Freelance Writing Direct podcast, ranked in the top 2.5% globally, where she interviews bestselling authors, editors, and publishing professionals about craft and career. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Marie Claire, and more.
Known for her engaging teaching style and practical, actionable feedback, Estelle helps writers transform their work so it stands out in a competitive publishing landscape.
Estelleâs websites can be viewed at: estelleserasmus.com and estelleserasmus.substack.com
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