Alice Stephens - On Adoption, and the stories we tell about it.
From as early as I can remember, I knew I was adopted and I knew that I loved making up stories. I don’t know if I wanted to become a writer because I was adopted, or I would have wanted to be a writer no matter what path my life had taken. My adoption journey has included the examination of the intersection of adoption and literature in my life. The following is a curated selection of my adoption-related writing.
This is the origin story of the Adoptee Literary Festival.
Three years after the publication of Famous Adopted People, I write about how the publication of my novel brought me closer to the adoption community.
I was honored to be interviewed by the golden-voiced Jennifer Dyan Ghoston on her podcast Once Upon a Time in Adopteeland.
This guest essay, “Rewriting the Adoption Narrative,” was published as a part of an important series Dialogue with Adoptees that was published by the Korean Times.
I wrote a rave review of Megan Culhane Galbraith’s hybrid memoir, The Guild of the Infant Saviour: An Adopted Child’s Memory Book.
My first podcast! So honored to be interviewed by Haley Radke of Adoptees On about Famous Adopted People, book reviews, the challenges of getting #ownvoices adoption stories published and my own adoption story.
My book review of Rebecca Carroll’s memoir of transracial adoption, Surviving the White Gaze.
My book review of Gabrielle Glaser’s groundbreaking, gut-wrenching expose of the adoption industrial complex, American Baby.
Talented mixologist Chantal Tseng created a custom cocktail inspired by Famous Adopted People. Watch her explain how to make it here (after a short introduction).
My search story was published online by Yonhap.
Thrilled to have been interviewed by The Scoop, an English language radio program broadcast from Seoul, about adoption, Famous Adopted People, and my search story. My interview begins at 0:31:00.
I insert my Korean-born, adopted self into this review of Cho Nam-Joo’s controversial bestselling novel, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982.
Things You Have Touched: To be an adoptee is to be a hybrid. Here is a hybrid prose-poem-essay-listicle-lament-and-tribute to my Korean mother.
The Five Stages of Adoption: As a transracial adoptee, I find the Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief to be a helpful guide to navigating all those heavy feelings associated with being adopted.
In this Fall for the Book event, Eugenia Kim (“The Kinship of Secrets”) and I discuss our novels, the Korean diaspora, adoption, and our writing processes. A first for the festival, the event was livestreamed from George Mason University’s Fairfax, VA, campus to their Songdo, South Korea, campus.
The Unlikable Novel: It’s not me, it’s you. Why I welcome negative reactions to my novel about adoption.
The Subject Not the Object: I was on the PBS NewsHour to talk about why adoptees should be the subject of their own adoption stories.
Four Novels that Get Adoption Right: As an adoptee, I know there are many misconceptions about adoption that still linger in the popular imagination. As an author, I regret that the majority of adoption novels being published today often promote those misconceptions. The good news is that there are some mainstream novels that do get adoption right. The bad news is that I could only come up with four.
Origin Story: Every adoptee must make their own origin story. This is mine.
Who Is the Villain in My Story?: On writing and rewriting the narrative of my life.
The Letter A: An exploration of identity via the letter 'A'.
Adoption Porn: Cliche and contrivance in contemporary novels about transracial adoption.
The Fictional Family: When one is adopted it's almost second nature to imagine all the lives one could have had that differ from the one you're actually having.
My White Pen Name: Resisting the temptation to acquiesce to the lazy stereotyping of the publishing industry in order to get published.
That Kind of Mother: A review for the Los Angeles Review of Books on Rumaan Alam's novel about the egotism and privilege that can underlie acts that another telling might describe as wholly charitable and selfless.
The Leavers: A review of Lisa Ko's novel about immigrants and adoptees.