I have loved to write for as long as I can remember and, though I didn’t realise it in my earlier decades, my adoption has inspired many of my stories. My stories, poetry, and essays have been my way to work through anger, guilt, and a strange sense of grief that I felt growing up feeling READ MORE
Posts by Maya Fleischmann
Maya Fleischmann is a freelance writer and artist. Her book reviews appear in numerous book industry trade publications including Publishers Weekly, BookPage, and Audiofile Magazine. Her stories and articles have been published in global travel and culture magazines, and books to include Peril magazine and Chicken Soup for the Working Mom’s Soul. Born and raised in Hong Kong, Maya has lived and traveled overseas extensively and currently resides in Florida. When she is not volunteering as a narrator for Learning Ally, or writing, she is busy painting and exploring the towns and waters of the beautiful Gulf Coast.
A Trip Becomes a Journey
A Trip Becomes a Journey
About a year ago, my DNA test led me to a first cousin. A few days ago, I returned from a trip to Brighton, UK, where I physically (versus virtually) met my uncle and two of his grown children living in the UK.
Finding Ching Ha, Meeting Family
“Understanding her diverse background, and being proud of it – that’s what will give her a sense of belonging, wherever she is.” ~ Finding Ching Ha A Long-Lost-Family Union It’s been a year since a DNA test found the family I had before my mother took me away from them and put up READ MORE
Exploring my Identity through My Novel and DNA Testing. (excerpt)
The Funeral by Maya Fleischmann Exploring my Identity through My Novel and DNA Testing. (excerpt from the full article on ICAV) The journey of self-discovery. This quest to discover who we really are is the stuff that novels and movies are made of. Though our self-perception transforms with time, events, social, and physical settings that READ MORE
The DNA results are in: Finding Ching Ha finds family.
The results are in. My mind is scattered, preoccupied, unfocused. More than usual. Excitement, angst, and bittersweet emotions burble, flitter, and flutter in my whole system. Why? Because it has been less than 72 hours since I received READ MORE
Merely a spit away from a relative discovery?
Turning to science in search of my biological family. Over the last several years, I have tried to find biological family, by asking my parents’ friends and my father’s coworkers in Hong Kong. I requested information through the birth records database in Hong Kong fell short. Why didn’t I just ask my adoptive parents? When READ MORE
Click here to read the prologue!
Finding Ching Ha – Prologue July 1967 Hong Kong Mrs. Wong walked through the maternity ward of Canossa Hospital to visit her granddaughter. Save for the cry of a baby, and whisperings of cooing voices, the hallway was silent, serene. She stopped in front of a private room and knocked softly. As she READ MORE
No Yesterdays
i sit in an empty room and hear voices in memories and dreams. i think of undocumented years before the age of two. i look at the floor and fall through
Lost and Found
Sometimes, when you feel lost, you don’t have to look far to find yourself.