Gen Tales

Fall 2023 Call for Submissions — Adoption Stories

Here at Gen Tales, we tell stories about family. Whether it’s how to find family, how to chart familial connections, or stories about those who came before us, it’s an interconnectedness so great, we will never know all of the connections in any of our trees. Adoption, though, that makes it even more difficult. In many cases, this means complete erasure of someone’s origins, sometimes literally.

This is an official call for submissions on adoption in terms of genealogy.

What we want to read:

• How you or someone you know found their biological family (this allows family trees to be updated by recording the connection as well as give leads to researchers hitting a snag)
• Stories on surprises from genetic testing
• Tips or hints on databases when researching an adoption or someone who was adopted
• Tales of following an adoptee’s trail

What we don’t want to read:

• Political commentaries (there are other pubs for this)
• Memoirs or personal essays (the focus should be on the genealogy/lineage research)

All submissions should follow the general submission guidelines of both Medium and Gen Tales, focusing on lineage research and genealogy or family stories (i.e., interconnectedness).

A rejection doesn’t mean I didn’t like your writing or your story, it just means I don’t think it fits Gen Tales. I know adoption can be a sensitive topic — please be sure you are writing about someone who is not living (or change the names, places, etc.) if the story is not your own.

If you want to be added as a writer for this call or any other, comment here or on the Submission Guidelines.