When Rebekah Pierre was first asked to edit Free Loaves on Fridays she almost declined. “Genuinely, my first instinct was absolutely not,” she tells Positive News. “There’s so much rejection in the care system already, I didn’t want to add to that.”
But, as she began to craft a polite ‘no thanks’ email she had an idea – an anthology with a no-rejections policy, so everyone who submitted work would be included. The result, published recently via Unbound, brings together more than 100 care-experienced voices, spanning poetry, stories, essays and open letters.
Authors, aged from younger than 13 to almost 70, paint a nuanced picture: from recollections of school reports being discarded as lost property by local authority workers, to the joy of discovering an adoptive family. The anthology gives voice to diverse experiences including foster care, adoption, kinship care and semi-independent living, among others. Contributors include well-known figures such as Lemn Sissay along with previously unpublished writers.
