Liberated, Madly

By Shelley Gaske and the Adoptee-Writers of Cohort 18

This Mad Libs®-style piece was created, done, and read in celebration of the final class of cohort 18. You can play along filling in the blanks with your own word choices or reading what the class created.

  1. Adjective:       
  2. Noun, plural:
  3. Animal:
  4. -ing verb:
  5. Sport: 
  6. Celebrity:
  7. Hobby:
  8. TV Show: 
  9. Weird vocation:
  10. Famous Landmark:
  11. Animal:
  12. Food: 
  13. Place: 
  14. adjective: 
  15. Nouns: 
  16. Big number:
  17. Past Tense Verb: 
  18. Bigger number:
  19. Verb: 
  20. Verb: 
  21. Body Part:

Once there was a (1.) gorgeous lady named Sara. She was adopted and liked (2.) cats and (3.) dinosaurs, but longed to start an adoptee writing cult. So she did.

Sara didn’t do it alone. By her side was Alice, famous for (4.) spelunking on a PBS documentary and her unparalleled (5.) watersports career.

So was Jennifer, revered as the (6.) Denzel Washington of (7.) birdwatching and ultimate fangirl of (8.) NCIS:Sydney.

Kate, the most notorious (9.) dog food taste tester East of the (10.) America’s Largest Pumpkin, joined only after a magical (11.) cougar appeared to her in her afternoon (12.) pierogi.

Last but not least, zooming from anywhere but (13.) Los Angeles, Natasha dazzles with her (14.) funny wisdom and her award winning research on (15.) Treble clefs.

Over 18 cohorts, (16.) 777 adoptees (17.) distilled, leading to (18.) 4,049 publications and book deals.

This space has meant so much to me. You’ve let me experiment, (19.) eat and metaphysically (20.) gyrate. So to my peers, until next time. And to the facilitators, thank you, from the very bottom of my (21.) butt.

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Picture of SHELLEY GASKE
Shelley Gaske lives and writes, mostly in Oregon, but not always. Her work has been supported most recently by The Seventh Wave, Abode Press, and the Key West Literary Seminar.