Chloé Caldwell expands the genre of memoir once again in her newest book, Trying, a candid look at the uncertainty—and messiness and emotions and beliefs—around trying to conceive. It is simultaneously hilarious and vulnerable, offering readers an intimate exploration of the act of trying and how that shapes who we become. In this interview, Justine Payton discusses with Chloé her intentions behind writing the book, how she navigated writing it while living its pages, the stylistic choices meant to capture her lived experience, writing as a way of living, and more.
Justine Payton: Infertility is one of those topics that is often shrouded in shame, and even when people do share about their struggles to get pregnant, those on the receiving end often don’t know what the right thing is to say in response. How do you wish our society would view and talk about infertility? What do you hope readers will take away about pregnancy and infertility from reading Trying?
Chloé Caldwell: I don’t have any particular hope for readers. To me, the mystery of books is that everyone interprets and takes away different aspects. I certainly don’t write with any take-aways in mind. Unexplained infertility (as well as explained infertility) is particularly a mindfuck because when you’re living in that world and seeing through that lens, your relationship to life changes. Everyone you speak to, meet, observe, every food you eat, any alcohol you consume, it is all through the lens of getting pregnant.
Early on in Trying, you write, “Somewhere, I read the quote, ‘Some delays are protection.”’ Of course, by the end we know this in many ways seems true. What was it like to write a book about trying to become pregnant, when the concept of the book ultimately changed and became about so much more?
It was a fun challenge. It took a lot of back and forth with my editor, Yuka, about how to approach it. We had some trial and error, emails, and phone calls. We both continually wondered and thought out loud about ways to approach the book, and ultimately the form appeared. At AWP in Los Angeles this past year, the publisher at Little Puss Press told me, “I like your style, you’re so decisive and ruthless!” and she was right. I make decisions and then commit to them. So at a certain point when the form of three acts felt right, I stuck with it instead of questioning. Also, the book was under contract and deadline, and I wanted to honor that.
I laughed out loud when I read the line, “Whenever a woman writes a book with her personal story, she has to bring in an alternate element of nature and then her book will be more popular, because the readers feel smart.” You do bring in another element—selling “life-changing” pants—and while I have some ideas, I’m curious to know how you see the pants and the act of trying working together across the course of this book?
That part makes me laugh too. It’s funny because it’s… true? It’s not to say I couldn’t sell the book just based on personal observations. But if you look at the publishing industry, especially memoirs and nonfiction, it’s become really trendy to publish memoirs that bring in elements of nature which to me is a literary device that’s secretly saying your story isn’t enough. It’s not that I don’t agree—I do, and in Trying I even say, “My thoughts are not enough, I agree.” When I was thinking and writing about that, I was specifically thinking of work I love: The Crane Wife by CJ Hauser, H Is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald, Stranger Care by Sarah Sentilles, and The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson.
I brought in the “trying” of retail and trying on clothes at the store because I’ve been missing blue-collar jobs in books. It seems like in so many books over the past decade the narrator—in both novels and nonfiction—is a writer or teacher of writing. I was thinking about books like Post Office by Bukowski and Whore Foods by LA Warman. I love reading from the perspective of someone working at a grocery store or babysitting, etc.
In your Author’s Note, you write that some of Act 3’s chronology is “intentionally blurred and nonlinear” to capture your experience and memory of that time. What choices are behind writing in this way? What is that process like for you to translate your experience so intimately on the page?
It’s not as much a process and more of a way of life. When my life exploded in April and May of 2023, I didn’t write for a couple of months as I was moving and in survival mode and traveling and teaching a ton. In July 2023, I was in Paris teaching. When I sat down at a desk in the hotel in the Latin Quarter, I wrote that psycho couple of pages about everything that had been going on, and then I likely burst into tears. I sent it to my editor at Graywolf and asked if we could keep it as-is, to signal a shift in the book. Yuka said yes. I didn’t choose to write Act 3 “intentionally blurred and nonlinear”—but I had to, because I was writing so close to the experience, I didn’t have years of distance and perspective. My mind was jumbled. Years of distance and perspective works for some books, stories, projects, but I’ve found a lot of delight in writing in real time. My book Women was written the same way.
I’m not sure if this is allowed in an interview, but you pose some unanswered questions in Trying and I’m curious to know if you’ve come up with any answers to these two in particular: How does a book about irresolution end, and what are the reader and the writer owed? And, if you’re writing about your life in real time, are you inherently fucked?
The reason I pose the questions is because I don’t have the answers. My books are questions. By “fucked” I didn’t mean in life, I meant in my specific situation of having already sold a book under a specific premise. Writing in real time has served me as a way to capture energy, urgency, and hyper-specific time periods.
You write near the end of Trying, “It’s funny that people think I don’t think I’ll be healing forever.” Can writing be an act of healing? And what does it mean for us to accept some degree of pain, of grief or of loss, in our life?
Writing is an act of living for me, rather than healing. Writing is one of the healthiest activities someone can do for themselves, though, in my opinion. Life is pain, so we have to work with it rather than resist. Writing doesn’t heal me, I don’t think—but it absolutely doesn’t hurt me. Healing is more from time, walks, reading, therapy, journaling. Writing, however, helps my rumination, and gives a place to my obsessions.
Trying also feels like it is for so many different types of people—any woman, any person trying to get pregnant or who has tried to get pregnant, writers, people who love jeans, the partners of any of these folks—the list goes on and on. Are all stories universal, or is that accessibility curated intentionally by a writer?
That’s so cool! I rarely am intentional about anything like that. I trust that the writing will do that on its own. I don’t set out to do it. It feels to me like a hyper-specific and universal book simultaneously.
Lastly, you’ve made an incredible career out of publishing with independent presses. What are the benefits of publishing with independent presses versus the Big Five? What has your experience been like?
It’s funny how when you get older you begin to see something people can organize into what looks like a path but wasn’t an intentional one. I wanted to write and publish books, and the way to do that for someone without a college degree, MFA, or well-paying job was the micro press and indie press route. My finances were absolutely dire until I was thirty-eight years old. Most people don’t want to take that financial hit. I often had $600 to my name for about fifteen years.
So far, my only Big Five book was a reissue of an indie book so that also wasn’t a conventional experience. Something I’m good at is knowing the right home for each book. I absolutely love finding which indie could be right for each book. My friend Alex Alberto says I’m polyamorous with publishers. Even if in the future I publish with Big Fives, I’m indie to my absolute core, that’s obvious.
Justine Payton is an MFA candidate at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, where she is a recipient of the Philip Gerard Graduate Fellowship, the Bernice Kert Fellowship in Creative Writing, and the Robert H. Byington Award. Her writing can be found in Bellevue Literary Review, Isele Magazine, The Masters Review, Terrain, and others. She is currently an editor for Ecotone Magazine, a guest editor for The Masters Review and CRAFT, the non-fiction editor for ONLY POEMS, and a former editorial intern with Tin House. She is also co-editing the anthology Between Our Legs, forthcoming from University of Iowa Press in 2026.
Chloé Caldwell is the author of the national bestseller 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, Bon Appétit, The Cut, MSNBC, Autostraddle, Longreads, and Nylon and many anthologies including Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving NYC, Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class, and Sluts. Her most recent book is Trying, published by Graywolf Press. She offers writing support at www.scrappyliterary.com and lives in Hudson, NY. Find her on Instagram at @chloeeeecaldwell and Substack: https://chloecaldwell.substack.com.