BROKEN FREE: WRITERS ON ESTRANGEMENT

Broken Free: Writers on Estrangement (Catapult, 2026) is a collection of personal stories about the experience of cutting or losing contact with family, edited by Jenny Bartoy. This powerful anthology features original work by Domenica Ruta, Anna Qu, Michelle Dowd, Kristen Millares Young, and Emi Nietfeld along with other acclaimed and emerging writers. 

The purpose of Broken Free is to share nuanced experiences of estrangement, written beautifully, in diverse voices. According to research, up to 27% of Americans are estranged from at least one family member. This reality affects over a quarter of our population, yet estrangement can be a source of great shame: rarely discussed and often stigmatized. The perspectives in this anthology will bring connection and validation to readers who have experienced estrangement, and will foster understanding and empathy in those who have not. 

Contributors write about the causes and decision-making for their estrangement. But focus is given at least equally to the experience of having cut contact: repercussions, grief, anger, relief, hope. Writers share the discoveries they made, the trauma they processed, the voice they found in severing contact with family or in having contact severed with them. 

Anthologized pieces consider how culture, race, politics, religion, gender, and/or sexual identity, or factors like mental illness, addiction, or intergenerational trauma might affect or compound estrangement. Cutting ties is marginalizing in itself; how does it exist in juxtaposition with other forms of marginalization? Extricating ourselves from the grasp of a toxic or abusive family member or system can feel impossible — how does the experience of estrangement empower us? Estrangement can also stem from abandonment, rejection, irreparable grievances, or moral or ethical disagreements — sometimes a combination of these factors. Often it epitomizes an essential and devastating incompatibility between family members. How does estrangement break or free us? 

Submissions to Broken Free are currently by invitation only. For inquiries, please contact Martha Wydysh at Trident Media Group.