Estelle Erasmus

Your Tango

Guideposts.

Creative Nonfiction.

Modern Farmer

The Washington Post's Inspired Life column

The Independent

How to mine your life for ideas.

Director Penny Marshall’s 30-year-old female baseball movie A League of Their Own is finding a new fan base in its latest incarnation on Amazon Prime as a video series, shining a light on multiple story lines the movie left out. With that hit film coupled with Big, Marshall was the first woman in history to break the $100 million mark at the box office.

When Abbi Jacobson, star and series cocreator of Broad City, spoke with Marshall in 2018, the director — who died in December 2018 — supporte...

When I became a magazine editor-in-chief in my thirties, I thought that my perk rich, cash poor, high-flying single gal lifestyle in the 1990s—press trips to Amsterdam and Paris, drinks with Ivana Trump at the Plaza, dinner with Christie Brinkley’s manager—sufficed for my lack of a maternal urge.
As “The Dating Diva” my alter ego, I penned a column for the magazine I edited and made television appearances excoriating women to value themselves, be a “sweet” bitch, and always leave a man wantin...

At the transitional stage of life between childhood and the teenage years, friendships can turn “toxic” in the blink of an eye, as friends — some flush in hormones — become "frenemies."

A mom of a 12-year-old girl from California told me that she has reservations about her child’s new BFF. “My daughter says her friend ignores her at school,” she says, “but when they're together at their community basketball team practice, she acts like she’s her best buddy.”

Another mom of an 11-year-old boy ...

I have a tenet that I follow when it comes to social media conflagrations: Don’t add your air to someone else’s fire.
This rule has saved my butt multiple times. For example, during one social media snafu, a writer responded to a post I made of an article I’d written, saying she wanted to discuss our opposing views—in a Facebook forum of thousands of people. The wording and tone of her comment showed she wasn’t interested in a real dialog, so I didn’t respond. Had I agreed to the request or m...

My parents lived together their whole lives, first in their suburban home, later in an apartment and even later in an independent-living apartment in a senior community. But last year, when my dad, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, had to be placed in memory care, my octogenarian mom had to live by herself for the first time in her life.
She is not alone in facing a change in living situation in her older years. For the millions of seniors in the United States (predicted to grow from around...

Allegations of a mysterious jet sale to a corporation, forced IUD, cronyism between judges and lawyers, hacked phones, disappearing social media posts and captions, changing names of registered agents on the same day, and even possible attempted murder. If you think this is a John Grisham novel, think again. It’s Britney, bitch. Since 2008, Britney Spears has been under a conservatorship that is usually reserved for people who are incapacitated and in a coma, with her father Jamie Spears in c...

At the transitional stage of life between childhood and the teenage years, friendships can turn “toxic” in the blink of an eye, as friends — some flush in hormones — become "frenemies."
A mom of a 12-year-old girl from California told me that she has reservations about her child’s new BFF. “My daughter says her friend ignores her at school,” she says, “but when they're together at their community basketball team practice, she acts like she’s her best buddy.”
Another mom of an 11-year-old boy ...