Our tattoos often hold the stories we struggle to voice—especially as adoptees, where identity, loss, and resilience etch themselves into our bodies. In this intimate, adoptee-only workshop, we’ll explore the narratives behind our ink: the cultural symbols, the reclaimed names, the homelands we’ve never seen, or the families we’ve chosen. 

This is a generative workshop. Through guided writing prompts and shared reflection, we’ll translate these visual marks into powerful prose, poetry, or memoir. Whether your tattoo is a tribute, a rebellion, or a quiet prayer, this space honors its significance in your journey. Please have something to write with (pen, paper, word processing software, etc.). 

No writing experience necessary! Activities are geared toward all levels of writers. We will write independently and also might do voluntary, facilitated group sharing activities. If we share, sharing activities will be structured around positive feedback only (Think: “This image stuck out to me. That sentence was powerful! I would love to know more about X, Y, Z.”). 

This workshop is exclusively for adoptees (18+) of all backgrounds and writing levels. We hold an intentional, antiracist, and queer/trans-affirming space—your story is honored here.

*Participants should be aware that this workshop content may challenge mainstream adoption narratives from a reform or abolition perspective. Our anger, confusion, sorrow, grief are welcome in this space. 

**This is an adoptee-only space for adults (18+) who have been directly impacted by the adoption / child welfare industrial complex (e.g. domestic, intercountry, trans/interracial, kinship, and second generation/descendants of adoptees). If you are unsure this is a space for you, please contact the facilitator. 

A portion of the earnings from this workshop will go to support the Abu Dayer family in Gaza, survive genocide, evacuate, and rebuild. Please consider this in your payment.

GOALS

• Foster connection among adoptees through shared storytelling

• Generate new writing around our tattoos

• Explore identity and reclamation through our tattoos as markers of identity, resistance, or reconnection to heritage/lost histories, etc.

• Validate adoptee experiences and honor the complexity of our stories

• Offer optional sharing and witnessing opportunities for community building, learning, and collective reflection

Register here.

Free literary salon hosted by WWPH, the longest, continuously operating cooperative nonprofit literary small press in the US, at historic The Arts Club of Washington, offering writing workshops and readings from AMERICA’S FUTURE. I will be reading my short story, “Baby’s First Ovoid™.”

Spaces are limited. RSVP required.

I’m thrilled to again be in conversation with the brilliant Elaine U. Cho, on her sci-fi blockbuster TEO’S DURUMI, the sequel to OCEAN’S GODORI. My blurb for the novel reads, “Without a moment to catch our breath, Teo’s Durumi picks up right where Ocean’s Godori left off. The thrills and chills of nonstop action belie the profound questions on capitalism, colonialism, caste, family loyalty, and identity formation upon which the wildly inventive, cinematic plot is built. A can’t-put-it-down read.”

Adoption is a fiction that incorporates a genetic stranger into a family as their own. Adoptees are told origin stories that they cannot verify. Our documents are very often edited into inconsequence and comprised of lies. In short, our lives are built upon fiction, so why not incorporate that into your writing? In this generative workshop, Alice Stephens will discuss why autofiction is the perfect vehicle for writing about adoption and explain how she uses it as she builds a collection of short stories. Writers will be led through warm-up exercises in preparation for writing an autofictional origin story.

Register for BIPOC Adoptee VOICES conference, July 24-27, 2025. Free to attend!

Our tattoos often hold the stories we struggle to voice—especially as adoptees, where identity, loss, and resilience etch themselves into our bodies. In this intimate, adoptee-only workshop, we’ll explore the narratives behind our ink: the cultural symbols, the reclaimed names, the homelands we’ve never seen, or the families we’ve chosen. 

This is a generative workshop. Through guided writing prompts and shared reflection, we’ll translate these visual marks into powerful prose, poetry, or memoir. Whether your tattoo is a tribute, a rebellion, or a quiet prayer, this space honors its significance in your journey. 

Please have something to write with (pen, paper, word processing software, etc.). 

No writing experience necessary! Activities are geared toward all levels of writers.

Co-facilitated with Joon Ae Haworth-Kaufka of Ajumama Workshop. Register here.

Join me for a reading with Eugenia Kim and Julayne Lee at AAWW (112 W 27th Street, Suite 600, New York). Click here for more details.

The Book Launch for Famous Adopted People will be held at Politics & Prose Bookstore (5015 Connecticut Ave NW) on Sunday, October 28, 2018, from 5-6pm.  Hope you can make it!