What Is
Estranged?
Estranged is a Substack newsletter devoted to exploring the topic of familial estrangement from a number of angles, including personal essay, interviews with researchers, psychologists, and other experts, and literary and cultural criticism.
Estrangement brings with it a veil of shame, and shame isolates. If you can’t talk openly (even if selectively) about this painful thing, you can’t come to find out that friends of yours, coworkers, teachers, and other people in your life have also gone through this experience. With increasing attention paid to the causes and aftermath of familial estrangement, I think it is possible that people who write about estrangement can overcome the shame and isolation, and help others do that, too.
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Recent Posts
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The Anatomy of the 'Deep-Dive' Estrangement Article
A couple of weeks ago a friend DMed an Instagram post about an article about adult children going “No Contact” with their parents. She knew how much I’ve been thinking about estrangement of late and wanted to know what I thought about the article. So, I read it—warily.
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Do We Live in Two Realities?
Years ago, when my children were babies, I saw in a Facebook group for moms a concerned post from a mom who wrote something like, “Why are there so many more vaccines now then when I was a kid? It seems like the amount of vaccines is mushrooming! Do we really need so many?”
As you work on your piece of writing, you probably crave feedback. Feedback can be very helpful! But, this post isn’t about that. :p This post is about whom NOT to ask. Yes, there are so many ways to give terrible writing feedback that is unhelpful or worse, discouraging.