This is day 18 of National Adoption Awareness Month, so this is my daily post to amplify the voices of adoptees.

Sara Easterly, an author and adoptee, founded Adoptee Voices to create a writing community that is all “about supporting adoptee storytelling.” As the website says, “Adoptees, it’s your turn to have a voice in conversations about adoption. You’ve lived through relinquishment. You know adoption from the inside. Your voice in the adoption narrative is both needed and necessary.”

To this end, Sara and her facilitators, who are all adoptees and all writers, have created Writing Groups for adult adoptees with stories to share. They meet weekly via Zoom, use adoption-specific writing prompts, and provide publishing and writing advice. They note that adoptees may all be adoptees, but their experiences may be vastly different. They call for grace and respect, and they acknowledge the reality of sensitive and difficult topics. They also are clear that these are not therapy sessions, but are facilitated peer writing groups, intended to serve a community of adoptees.

In her book “Searching For Mom: A Memoir,” Sara shares how, as an adoptee, she “had difficulties attaching to her mother, struggled with her faith, lived the effects of intergenerational wounding, and felt an inherent sense of being unwanted that drove her to perfectionism, suicidal ideations, and fantasy mothers. When she became a mom, her search to find and become ‘the perfect mother’ intensified … until her mother’s death launched a spiritual epiphany. Sara’s perspective as an adoptee offers insight for anyone in the adoption constellation.”

I’ve known Sara through our work in the adoption community, and was thrilled to hear she had created this series of online writing groups. This Saturday November 19, Sara will moderate a free, online panel along with Alice Stephens, a Korean adoptee and author of the debut novel Famous Adopted People.The eight panelists are all adoptees, from Korea and China, who will discuss what the Adoptee Voices Writing Group has meant to them. Learn more about this UniversalAsian conversation here.

Upcoming Adoptee Voices writing sessions include “Write Your Way Through the Holiday Season,” and “Writing Resolutions Winter 2022.” You can learn about all the writing groups and register for them here.

It is wonderful to have more adoptees writing and sharing their stories.