“Isn’t it strange to think that for so long your children were your only blood relatives? You smile, remembering when you held them and rocked them while that thought went through your head over and over again. And you cried when each of your boys turned 18 months old, because that’s how old you were when you were removed from your family. You studied their innocent faces, felt the power of their entire trust in you for being there for them. And you knew you would do whatever it took to keep your children with you. Whatever. It. Took.”
As you probably know, child adoption has been my life’s work for the past three or more decades. Recently, I was invited to submit a chapter for the anthology RELATIVE STRANGERS: Inheritance, Identity, and the Meaning of Kinship, edited by B.K. Jackson, titled “Coming Home.” Written in 2nd person, the essay detailed what it was like […]
It’s been a while since I’ve written a post, mainly because I’ve been meeting deadlines! Here are some events to keep in mind, if you like YA books, are interested in conversations of historical connections, or like podcasts that reveal the inside experiences of a person (me). Today (First, my YA fiction story, “Shawl Dance”, […]
Considering that ICWA is at stake on the U.S. Supreme Court level, it is important for child placement professionals, and prospective adoptive parents to really understand how impactful anti-Indian structures are on American Indian transracial adoptees.
I have the honor of being asked to speak for the Utah’s Annual ICWA Conference. I will be giving a virtual presentation. American Indian children who have been removed from their home and are being considered for placement in foster care or adoption require stability. The removal itself is traumatizing, with effects that last late […]
I will be giving a presentation of Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption and talking about the writing of it, and why it was an important book to be out in the public space. Please join me at the LaVeta Library at 1:oo p.m. for a reading, conversation and questions.
Recently, U.S. Supreme Court Judge Amy Coney Barrett suggested that child placement through adoption makes Roe V. Wade a moot point. And there are pleny of myths that point to this seemingly painless transaction. But as Katherine Joyce, a writer for Salon, states, “the suggestion that adoption entails nothing more than several months of inconvenience […]
Join me as I talk with three fabulous adoptee writers about their books, their experiences and their craft. The conversation will prove to be intriguing, educational, and not an event to miss.
Join me as we get into the details of what it means to write about the adoption experience, and what the experience is reading that experience. Discussion of Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoptees. Members only.
Last month, I participated in a podcast with the Archibald Project, an organization that uses storytelling to address the orphan and child vulnerability crisis in creative and educated ways. I loved talking with them because they asked the hard questions, those questions that reveal the complexity and depth of tough issues, the ones that make […]
