How to Be Your Own Agent

A conversation with Chloe Caldwell, author of four books, most recently The Red Zone: A Love Story.

Chloe Caldwell

Readers,

This is the third in a series of behind the scenes video interviews with authors, editors, and others in the field about aspects of publishing personal essays, essay collections, and memoirs. The first, in December, was with Tajja Isen, author of Some of My Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service, and the editor-in-chief of Catapult.

These interviews are for paying subscribers only. If you’re not a paying subscriber, please consider becoming one. (*If you can’t afford a paid subscription, email me at memoirmonday@gmail.com, and I’ll comp you. )

For this installment, I’ve interviewed Chloe Caldwell, author of four books, including The Red Zone: A Love Story, I’ll Tell You In Person, Women, and Legs Get Led Astray.

Order Caldwell’s latest book, The Red Zone: A Love Story

Caldwell has had an unusual career tragectory. She started as an outsider who hadn’t completed her studies at community college. She learned by being a reader, and taking courses at places like Gotham Writers. She fell in love with small literary publications and websites like The Rumpus, and books from indie publishers.

Caldwell’s preference for indie outlets and publishers informed the kind of writer she became. All of Caldwell’s books have been published with independent publishers—Future Tense Books, Short Flight/Long Drive Books, the Emily Books imprint at Coffee House Press, and Soft Skull Press.

Now she’s not only a popular author, she’s a much sought-after teacher at various institutions, including Writing Workshops Dallas, Fine Arts Work Center, and Corporeal Writing—where beginning February 6th she’ll teach Writing With Intution: Trusting Yourself.

In our conversation, Caldwell talks about her experiences with publishing; signing with, then parting ways with agents; the mainstream publishers who considered her work; and the indie presses where she happily landed.

It’s an inspiring conversation—a version of one that Caldwell and I have had privately over the many years we’ve known each other since she debuted at The Rumpus, then contributed an essay to Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving & Leaving NY, and last June appeared with me in conversation at Rough Draft Bar & Books in Kingston, NY.

I hope you enjoy it!

- Sari Botton

CHLOE CALDWELL is the author of four books: The Red Zone: A Love Story (Soft Skull, 2022), the essay collection I’ll Tell You in Person (Coffee House 2016), the critically acclaimed novella, WOMEN (SF/LD 2014) and Legs Get Led Astray. Chloe’s essays have appeared in The New York Times, Bon Appétit, The Cut, The Strategist, Buzzfeed, Longreads, Vice, Nylon, Salon.com, Medium, The Rumpus, Catapult, The Sun, and half a dozen anthologies including Goodbye To All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving NY and Without A Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class. Her essay “Hungry Ghost” was listed as Notable in 2017 Best American Non Required Reading. She teaches creative writing online at Writing Workshops, Fine Arts Work Center, and Corporeal Writing. She lives in Hudson, N.Y. with her family.

SARI BOTTON is the author of the memoir in essays, And You May Find Yourself...Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen-X Weirdo. She is a contributing editor and columnist at Catapult, and the former Essays Editor for Longreads. She edited the bestselling anthologies Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving NewYork and Never Can Say Goodbye: Writers on Their Unshakable Love for New York. She teaches creative nonfiction at Catapult, Bay Path University and Kingston Writers' Studio, and in spring, ‘23 will be the Writer in Residence at SUNY New Paltz. She publishes Oldster Magazine, Memoir Monday, and Adventures in Journalism.