Aspects of Life – Thoughts and Conversations
The one thing that I really enjoy is talking about Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption. Whether it is at a book festival, in a lecture hall, in a book club or on the radio, I get a little jazzed when I’m asked for an interview. Especially when the interview questions are as detailed […]
Book ideas don’t materialize out of nothing. Built on foundations of experience, or rooted in something larger than a single story, ideas begin as ethereal and boundless shapes. Over time they take form, eventually becoming distinct and real. Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption is such a book. Although shaping the story has its […]
Just before I left for London last week, I was notified that Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption had been chosen as one of four finalists in the Creative Nonfiction category of the Colorado Book Awards. I am thrilled and I am so very honored to be among this list of great writers with […]
Last night, I was one of 23 women who were part of a project at Colorado State University for International Women’s Day. The Theme was resilience. And there were four amazing speakers, three students and one professor, who told their stories of challenge and achievement, and reminded us ‘older’ ones what our role needs to […]
Unless you are Stephen King, publishing is like graduating from college – people aren’t knocking down your door asking you to work for them, or in this case, talking about your book. At least not until you get your name out there. And that can take a bit of time, a lot of patience, and […]
During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, American Indian children were placed with white families at a phenomenal rate. By 1974, approximately 30% American Indian children were removed from their American Indian families and placed with non-Indian families. Neglect was cited most often, a vague term that was responsible for changing the lives of Indian children, […]
The Indian Childwelfare Act of 1978 was established to stop the wholesale removal of American Indian kids from their families and communities. Prior to its legislation, Indian children were placed and hidden behind closed adoptions, with no way to find our way back to our families, our tribes. We were forced to live in a […]
A live interview is far more difficult to carry off than a taped and edited interview. Questions are asked that may not be what was expected, so there are pauses and “ums” as words are searched for in a room filled with tons of information. Even so, listening to this podcast still makes my throat […]
This episode of In Other Words was originally aired on June 7, 2014. Interviewer Ann Szalda-Petree probed the issues that were brought to light in my study of American Indian transracial adoption. This type of child placement was an informal policy during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and the outcomes for adoptees were, many times, […]
No one wants to talk about suicide. But NO one wants to talk about adoption and suicide. Because, as Judith Modell writes in her book A Sealed and Secret Kinship: the culture of Policies and Practices in American Adoption (2002), “Adoption is a benign, pleasurable and apparently uneventful event–except to those who are involved.” I’ve heard […]