Wild Freedom

A compelling work of fairy tale, memoir, self-enchantment, and Jungian reflection.

Once upon a time, during a personal crisis, novelist, poet, and essayist Dale M. Kushner wrote a fairy tale to survive it. Decades later, she returns to that story to ask a larger question: what do fairy tales teach us about creativity, trauma, and transformation?

That inquiry became Wild Freedom: The Princess Who Found Her Name - On Fairy Tales, Imagination, and the Creative Mind. It mixes fairy tale, memoir, and reflection to explore imagination as a vital psychological and spiritual practice. Kushner argues that the creative self is essential, even if it does not always peacefully coexist with family, identity, motherhood, and desire.

A student of psychiatrist Carl Jung, the author invited notable Jungian thinkers Henry Abramovitch, Kenneth W. James, Dariane Pictet, and Murray Stein, to write essays to accompany the fairy tale, suggesting readers partake of their own journeys of self-discovery.

In an era marked by political, ecological, and emotional burnout, Wild Freedom argues that imagination is not escapism — it’s survival.