Tag Archives: adoption

GEORGENE SMITH GOODIN: Family Secrets

Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

Your husband takes a DNA test after his father dies. Your father-in-law was a traveling salesman who really got around; maybe there’s siblings.

You test as moral support, secretly hoping a girl with a moon face, the pinkest skin, a girl you’ve held just once, is looking for you, too.

Georgene Smith Goodin’s work has appeared in numerous publications, and has won the “Mash Stories” flash fiction competition. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the cartoonist Robert Goodin, and their four children. Follow her on Bluesky at @gsmithgoodin.bsky.social.

RACHEL HAPANOWICZ: The Case of Upside-Down Carassius Auratus

Submissions, Top Stories, Touching, , , , , ,

My mother keeps secretly replacing my little sister’s dead goldfish.

My newly adopted sister keeps randomly telling strangers at the store, “My mommy died!” and “I’m going to the beach!” My mother–our mother–nods, tired.

Two things can be true: There is a dead goldfish. There is a replacement.

Rachel Hapanowicz is currently a teacher in Cincinnati public schools where she is an expert at making cool lingo very uncool to her students, being from Ohio, and finding the best karaoke spots in town.

NIKKI DAVISON: Adopting

Artistic, Submissions, Touching, , ,

I live with them now. I like them. They have red hair and freckles, lots of freckles, the kind that sit close and blur into each other. I dotted orange paint over my face to look just like them. They cried and hugged me tight, my freckles smudging into theirs.

Nikki Davison is a writer, book hoarder and guinea pig rescuer from north-east England.

LISA CHAMBERS: From Longing to Belonging

Submissions, Touching, , , , ,

Homeless, he roamed the streets aimlessly, each day a looming uncertainty.

Kindness sought from strangers was elusive until a chance meeting outside a laundromat. Finally: someone who saw beyond his very rough edges.

These days, “Ben” lives cozily, his tail beating a joyous rhythm whenever his new Dad is near.

Lisa Chambers is a Texas girl and writer who loves happy endings.

CMF WRIGHT: Fake Bones and Stepping Stones

Amusing, Artistic, Submissions, , ,

She cut herself falling off her bike. Instead of blood, wires spilled out.

She wondered if her childhood was a lie, fake memories coded into her psyche. If her parents were androids too.

The last one was easy to test.

She taped a metal detector to the doorway and waited.

C.M.F. Wright (@cmf_wright) is an avid fantasy reader and sentence wrangler. Her short stories have appeared in Fifty Word Stories, Syntax & Salt Magazine and the VSS365 Anthology.

JONATHAN H SMITH: Nurture

Submissions, Touching, , ,

“I think the cutie has her mother’s eyes,” remarked one passerby while the new family was out eating breakfast.

The couple knowingly smiled at one another: their child was adopted. It had only been six months, but despite not necessarily having their likeness, she already resembled them more and more.

Jonathan H. Smith lives and works in Phoenix, Arizona.

SB BORGERSEN: An Impossible Choice

Submissions, , ,

“This is what’s available,” barks the man.

She looks through the bars.

Pressed against them: faces. Beseeching. The heart-breaking whining unbearable. She cannot take all.

She writes a random number on her document and presents it to the office.

“A boy? You pick a boy?”

“Yes,” is her choked reply.

Internationally published, S.B. Borgersen writes, knits socks, and walks her smashing dogs on the south shore of Nova Scotia. Her favoured genres are short and micro fiction and poetry. She has thirteen draft novellas gathering dust. A member of The Nova Scotia Writers’ Federation, Writers Abroad, and a founding member of The Liverpool Literary Society, Sue judged the Atlantic Writing Competition (Poetry) 2016 and Hysteria (Poetry) 2017. See more at sueborgersen.com.

JENNIFER L FREED: Fourteen

Submissions, Top Stories, Touching, , , ,

I thought,
when my daughter finally left
my womb,
that I’d be free
again,
could go back
to my old self.

Nobody told me
my breasts would ache
for her hunger,
or that her heat, her scent,
her fierce little grip
would hold me
even after I’d given her away.

Jennifer L. Freed likes inventing characters but doesn’t have enough time to write. The narrator of this story did not exist until a prompt (“Write something on the theme of independence”) brought her to life.

AJ PIERZ: Selfless

Submissions, Touching, , , , , , ,

Reality became clearer as the epidural lost its grip on her. She looked down at her beautiful creation, counting ten fingers and ten toes.

The room was bursting with happiness for the new addition to their family.

Her heart shriveled as she handed over her baby to his new mother.

AJ Pierz is from St. Paul, Minnesota, and is currently working on her debut novel. Follow her on Twitter.

MEGNA MURALI: The Unknown Mother

Submissions, Touching, , ,

I watch him from across the street. The ice cream cone in his hand leaves pink drops on the pavement.

I watch as she bends down, tenderly wiping the sticky mess around his beaming smile. I watch my son slip his hand into hers and walk away with his mother.

Megna Murali is an amateur writer who has vowed to escape corporate stoogedom through the power of words. She likes to put one word after the other and watch magic happen. Her blog is the outlet for her chaotic creativity.