January 2026 Updates
Hello, all! I hope January treated you well. My updates are below.
- I have another short fictional essay available, once again narrated by Malia Blu. You can read “Keys” here.
- I’ve been getting very into History Hit podcasts, and I love the wide variety of time periods they explore. I do wish they were a bit less British/Western-focused, but I do appreciate that they try to explore different perspectives and places.
Thank you for stopping by! Feel free to share your adoptee-related writing or history podcast recs in the comments. This month, I encourage you to support the LUCE Immigrant Network of MA, which operates an ICE watch and hotline, and the Rohingya Community Partners’ emergency fundraising campaign to support families who lost their shelters in a fire in Bangladesh. I also encourage you to support Reviving Gaza, a mutual aid network providing aid to people in Gaza. For more resources and organizations to support, please look here.
Essay: Keys
This short essay is written from the perspective of fictional character Malia Blu.
They say that doors are meant to keep us in. To lock something inside. And that’s why we need keys. Except, I don’t have a key. I’m just a door, locked and sealed. A secret within.
What does it mean to keep a secret, especially one to yourself? I should know because I do it every day. I tuck the secret within myself, never allowing it to graze the surface.
But doors have cracks too. And light can’t help but peek through. It reaches for the darkness. Clawing. Gnawing. And I keep my door locked. Preserving the darkness within.
Nevertheless, the light strains. Pulling at the dark. Expanding against the shadows. And as the day brightens, so does my gloom until it begins to take shape. Solidifying in the corner of my room.
I have a secret that I keep. From myself, my mothers, my sisters, my friends. I found something that I could know if I wanted to but I choose not to. And every day my body aches more and more to know.
I know that doors are meant for opening. For letting in sounds, lights, things, people. And there are people I could let in. I want to let in. I’m terrified to let in. People that are both intrinsically part of my life and indisputably not.
How can I let in the people who left me? Abandoned me? I crave to. I fear to. I…don’t know how to.
I dreamed of this moment when I first uploaded my DNA onto that site. I longed to know how it had ended this way, how I had ended up continents away from where I had been born.
Now, with just one email, I can open that connection. I can defy years of silence, mystery, and yearning. I can be a key and not a door.
But will I truly learn more? Or will there only be more questions? That’s the thing with keys, sometimes they only lead you to more doors.
December 2025 Updates
Hello! I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the end of the year! I’m still having trouble believing it’s been a year since I started these updates. My December updates are below.
- I published a new fictional essay from the perspective of Wendy Stoneman, an adoptee character I created when I was little. You can read the essay here. I have also been working on a short story that features two adoptee siblings, which has been interesting to explore.
- I have been reading an excellent Silmarillion AU fanfic that takes place in 1970s India by timelessutterances called Prayers to the Broken Stone. It’s fairly accessible for readers unfamiliar with The Silmarillion and delves into politics, history, grief, adoption, and identity in very compelling ways.
Thank you for sticking with me this year! Happy New Year, and please feel free to share your adoptee writing in the comments. This month, I encourage you to support the Barana Hanabneiho Organisation, a youth-led Sudanese organization that provides food, shelter, and education in underprivileged areas of Sudan. I also encourage you to support the Uyghur Wellness Initiative, which provides safe spaces for Uyghur communities, and the “We Got This” program, which is a Milwaukee-based community garden. For more resources and organizations to support, please look here.
Essay: Adoption is Not My Story
Note: This fictional essay is written from the perspective of the character Wendy Stoneman.
Adoption is not my story. My story is of the ocean—of the waves that crashed against the rocks in my previous home in England and the waves that now smooth the sand in my current home in Buchtton. Those are the homes that I remember.
I do not remember my life before. Those stories belong to other people. People I no longer remember and perhaps never knew. They are not my own.
What I do remember is the caw of the seagulls as the summer sun beat down on us. I stared out at the ocean. Dark, relentless. My feet dug into the thick, oozing sand. I was six. “Where’s home?” I had asked my father. It had been three years since we left my first home.
He smiled at me, his blond hair sprayed back by the wind, and his blue eyes reflected the even deeper sapphire of the sea. “It’s here,” he assured. “But it used to be there.” He pointed across the ocean.
And it’s true. I never knew China, not even sure if the province I was adopted from is even the province I was born in. How can it be my story if I don’t even know it? If I didn’t write it?
But there is a small voice within me that wonders. Does being a part of other people’s stories make those stories mine? Is it that easy to define a home?
I beg the ocean to answer me. And it rumbles on, leaving me in the sand. So I growl on, adoption is not my story.
November 2025 Updates
Hey, everyone! I hope you had a wonderful November! I am posting my updates below.
- I worked more on that fictional essay and finished the first draft. I am now working on reviewing and editing it.
- I watched some more Al Muqaddimah videos on Islamic history, which were very illuminating, as unfortunately, I only briefly learned about these topics in school.
Thank you for stopping by! Let me know your adoptee writing updates and any cool videos you have been watching in the comments! This month, I am once again encouraging you to donate to Khartoum Kitchen, which is directly running 12 kitchens in the Khartoum area in Sudan, and to follow Saroyah’s Twitter list for updates on the humanitarian crisis. I also encourage you to give to the Western Alaska Disaster Relief Fund, which is supporting Western Alaskan communities following devastating typhoons and storms in October. For more resources and organizations to support, please look here.
October 2025 Updates
Welcome, everyone! I hope you had a great October! My updates are below.
- I worked more on that fictional essay I’ve been talking about for a little while now. It’s been fun seeing the turns it’s been taking.
- I also read more of Adeeb Khalid’s Central Asia, and it’s been interesting reading about the Russian Revolution from the perspective of Central Asians.
Thank you for stopping by! Please feel welcome to leave your adoptee writing updates and any history book recs in the comments! This month, I encourage you to support The Needle of Hope, which raises money for Omar to tailor clothes for children in Gaza, the Sudan Solidarity Collective, which is raising money to support food distribution in El Fashir, and the Ohketeau Cultural Center, which is a Native-led cultural center that supports Indigenous people in Central and Western Massachusetts. For more resources and organizations to support, please look here.
September 2025 Updates
Welcome back! I hope you had a great September! My updates for this month are below.
- I worked more on that piece I mentioned last time that stars adoptee characters. It’s been fun delving into how each character handles their differing situations.
- This is going to sound really random, but I’ve recently been very much enjoying blumineck’s shorts on medieval weapons and history. They’re all so entertaining!
That’s all for September! Feel free to share your adoptee writing updates and random YouTube recs in the comments. This month, I encourage you to support AIDESEP, an organization in Peru that supports the rights of Indigenous peoples along the Amazon. It appears that you need a Peruvian identification number to support them financially through their website, but you can follow their social media accounts for more information about their actions. I also encourage you to support On the Rise, a Massachusetts community and Safe Haven for women, transgender, and nonbinary people moving through homelessness, and to follow Refugees in Niger, which brings attention to the Black African refugees protesting the neglect and human rights abuses they are facing in Agadiz. For more resources and organizations to support, please look here.
August 2025 Updates
Welcome, all! My updates for this month are written below.
- I worked some more on that fictional essay I’ve been writing, and I’ve also been working on another piece that will dive into an adoptee character. It’s still in its early stages of planning.
- I’m pretty sure I mentioned Daughters of Ferrix before, but I’ve been enjoying their most recent episode on the complexities of studying history and writing about history in both fictional and real-world settings.
Thank you for reading my updates! Feel free to let me know what adoptee-related writing you’ve been creating/reading and any cool podcast episodes you’ve been listening to in the comments. This month, I encourage you to check out the National Black Food & Justice Alliance, a coalition supporting Black self-determination and food sovereignty in the US. Additionally, The Okra Project is a mutual aid collective supporting Black Trans folks through food and housing security and mental health support. I also urge you to support the Rohingya Community Partners’ fundraiser to run a training program for Rohingya refugee youth and girls. For more resources and organizations to support, please look here.
July 2025 Updates
Hello! I hope July has been treating you well! My updates for this month are below.
- I’ve been working more on my current adoption-related fictional essay. It’s definitely been taking turns that I haven’t been expecting, and it’s been fun wrestling with the complicated feelings and dynamics that being an adoptee brings.
- I mentioned on my Darcy Hongyue account months ago that I was reading Emily Wilson’s translation of The Iliad. I finished reading it a little bit ago, but reading it dragged me down a rabbit hole where I listened to a bunch of Wilson’s podcast interviews so I could learn more about her translation process. Now that I've exhausted all the Iliad-focused ones, I’ve been listening to her Odyssey interviews, and I enjoyed hearing what she had to say about translation and ethics in these two episodes. I’ve been learning so much about the complexity of translation and how to grapple with complicated texts from the past.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to share any adoptee-related writing you have been doing or interesting podcasts you’ve been listening to in the comments! This month, I urge you to support USCPR’s Water Is Life Gaza campaign, which is a Palestinian-led project that delivers clean water to families displaced by Israel’s ongoing genocide. I also encourage you to support Refugees in Libya, an organization advocating for refugees throughout North Africa and Europe. Finally, please support the Massachusetts Bail Fund, which is an abolitionist direct service organization that pays bail for those who cannot afford it. For more resources and organizations to support, please look here.
June 2025 Updates
Welcome back! I hope June has treated you well! My updates are below.
- I worked more on my current adoption-related essay. I find it interesting how ocean imagery always seems to come to me when I write these fictional essays.
- I’ve been listening to more Daughters of Ferrix, a Star Wars podcast, and I’ve been enjoying how they bring together culture, history, and politics in an informative and entertaining way.
Thank you for reading my updates! Please feel free to share any adoptee-related writing or podcast recs in the comments! This month, I encourage you to donate to the Sameer Project, a Palestinian initiative working to provide medical aid, supplies, and food in Gaza. Also, please check out ‘Āina Momona, a community organization working toward environmental health, social justice, and Hawaiian sovereignty. Thirdly, Hope Relief and Rehabilitation is a Sudanese organization supporting people with disabilities, particularly in the Nuba Mountains, where famine has been declared. For more resources and organizations to support, please look here.
May 2025 Updates
Happy May! I hope you are all well this month. I have shared my May updates below.
- I worked a bit more on the current fictional, adoption-related essay I’m writing. I’m trying to take on a different perspective than I normally do when I write these essays, and it’s been an interesting time.
- I’ve been reading more of Adeeb Khalid’s Central Asia, which has been very illuminating, and I have been learning a lot of history that I unfortunately was ignorant of.
Thank you for reading my updates! Feel free to share any adoptee-related writings or history book recommendations in the comments below. This month, if you live in the US, I encourage you to contact your congresspeople to urge action regarding the ongoing forced famine in Gaza here and to advocate against cutting SNAP here. Please also review Saroyah’s Twitter list here for updated information regarding the continuing humanitarian crisis in Sudan. For more resources and organizations to support, please look here.
April 2025 Updates
I hope you are doing well this April! I have shared my updates for this month below.
- My friend shared this interesting video on how to go to hell in five of the world’s major religions with another friend and me. I enjoyed learning about the diversity between and within these belief systems.
- I started a new fictional essay from the perspective of character Wendy Stoneman. I also created a Neocities site and a Wix blog that you can find on my Carrd.
Thank you for sticking around this month! Feel welcome to share any interesting videos you’ve watched or adoptee-related writing in the comments. This month, I encourage you to support the Basandja Coalition, which lifts the voices of Indigenous and local communities in the Congo Basin, and FiveforFive, a collective fund for trans women in the UK. Also, please check out AILA’s immigration advocacy resources. For more resources and organizations to support, please look here.