Posts Tagged ‘articles about adoption’

New Yorker response

Friday, July 14th, 2017
A few weeks ago I posted my letter to The New Yorker about an article written by Sarah Hutto. Yesterday I received an email from Sarah Hutto clarifying her intention.
Hi Jessica,
My recent piece in The New Yorker is a satire of animal adoption listings often found on animal rescue websites, which I peruse often. It is a joke about writers being dysfunctional.
Hope this helps.
Best,
Sarah Hutto
I appreciate Hutto’s responding, although my reaction to reading the piece remains the same. In case you missed it, here’s my original post and letter, with link to Hutto’s article.

I’m almost finished my second residency of my low-residency MFA at Antioch LA and I miss my family. Maybe that’s why I was so disturbed by Sarah Hutto’s New Yorker column, “Writers Looking for Forever Families: Adoption Listings.” The column is supposed to be funny. But in my world, adoption is never a joke. I wrote a Letter to the Editor. We’ll see if they publish it:

To the Editor:

Sarah Hutto’s “Writers Looking for Forever Homes: Adoption Listings” reveals a lack of sensitivity so deep it left me shaking.
At its core, “adoption” means losing one’s parents, being separated from ancestry and blood. There is nothing funny about that. In addition, Hutto describes her characters as stereotypical losers–feral writer, smoker, bad eater, a man who bites. Substitute any other group for “people who are adopted” and listen to how the previous sentence reads.

The New Yorker owes an apology for this insulting column to every adopted baby, child, adult; every mother who made the decision to place a child for adoption; to adoptive parents.

Sincerely,

Jessica O’Dwyer

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Call it for what it is

Friday, June 23rd, 2017

I’m almost finished my second residency of my low-residency MFA at Antioch LA and I miss my family. Maybe that’s why I was so disturbed by Sarah Hutto’s New Yorker column, “Writers Looking for Forever Families: Adoption Listings.” The column is supposed to be funny. But in my world, adoption is never a joke. I wrote a Letter to the Editor. We’ll see if they publish it:

To the Editor:

Sarah Hutto’s “Writers Looking for Forever Homes: Adoption Listings” reveals a lack of sensitivity so deep it left me shaking.
At its core, “adoption” means losing one’s parents, being separated from ancestry and blood. There is nothing funny about that. In addition, Hutto describes her characters as stereotypical losers–feral writer, smoker, bad eater, a man who bites. Substitute any other group for “people who are adopted” and listen to how the previous sentence reads.

The New Yorker owes an apology for this insulting column to every adopted baby, child, adult; every mother who made the decision to place a child for adoption; to adoptive parents.

Sincerely,

Jessica O’Dwyer

ShareThis