Facets of reconnection in adoption: three stories

Abstract

It's been said that you can only write on what you know about, and that you should only write on the things that interest you. If a writer followed these rules consistently, it would be difficult to come up with fiction that wasn't in some way autobiographical. Throughout the writing of these stories, which focus on the three major parties involved in adoption, the issue of autobiography has always lingered at the back of my mind. Whether to incorporate my own experiences and/or feelings about adoption and the way it has shaped my life was always a question, mostly because at times it seemed unavoidable. This isn't the story of my life, although I guess it could be. Adoption has long been of interest to me and has been a primary subject of my writing since my first creative writing class in high school. My first piece, though fiction, was definitely biographical. It was about a mother and father who couldn't find the occasion, or a reason, or the words to tell their twin daughters that they were adopted. It was a story about a family I knew. The pieces I've written for my thesis, conversely, are based on nobody's life- at least, they weren't consciously written with anyone in mind.