Adoptee artists – poetry and writing

Here you will find books and websites of adoptee poets and writers:

Anthologies

Seeds from a Silent Tree: An Anthology by Korean Adoptees (Jo Rankin and Tonya Bishoff, Editors)

Voices From Another Place: A Collection of Works From a Generation Born in Korea and Adopted to Other Countries (Susan Soon-Keum Cox, Editor)

 

 

Memoirs and Personal Essays: 

Amanda H.L. Transue-Woolston – The Declassified Adoptee: Essays of an Adoptee Activist

Anne Fessler – The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade 

Antwone Fisher – Finding Fish

 Deborah Jiang Stein – Even Tough Girls Wear Tutus: Inside the World of a Woman Born in Prison and Prison Baby

Jaiya John – Black Baby, White Hands: A View from the Crib

Jane Jeong Trenka – Fugitive Visions: An Adoptee’s Return to Korea and The Language of Blood

Jean Strauss – Beneath a Tall Tree

June Cross – Secret Daughter

Katy Robinson – A Single Square Picture: A Korean Adoptee’s Search for her Roots

Kim Sunee – Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love and the Search for Home

Mei-Ling Hopgood – Lucky Girl: A Memoir

Patrick McMahon – Becoming Patrick: A Memoir

Susan Harris O’Connor – The Harris Narratives: An Introspective Study of a Transracial Adoptee

Susan Ito – A Ghost at Hearts Edge (Editor)

 

Fiction

Matthew Salesses – The 100 Year Flood, I’m Not Saying, I’m Just Saying, The Last Repatriate

Sun Yung Shin – Cooper’s Lesson (children’s book) 

 

Non-Fiction

Betty Jean Lifton – Lost and Found: The Adoption Experience and Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness, and Twice Born: Memoirs of an Adopted Daughter (memoir)

Joyce Maguire Pavao – The Family of Adoption

Matthew Salesses – Different Racisms

Rhonda Roorda – In Their Own Voices: Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories, In Their Siblings’ Voices: White Non-Adopted Siblings Talk About Their Experiences Being Raised with a Black and Biracial Brothers or Sisters and In Their Parent’s Voices: Reflections on Raising Transracial Adoptees

SooJin Pate – From Orphan to Adoption: U.S. Empire and Genealogies of Korean Adoption.

Susan Devan Harness – Mixing Cultural Identities Through Transracial Adoption: Outcomes of the Indian Adoption Project (1958-1967)

 

Poetry

Bryan Thao Worra, DEMONSTRA, BARROW,  and On The Other Side Of The Eye

Hei Kyong Kim, The Translation of Han

Jackie Kay, Red Dust Road and The Adoption Papers

Jennifer Kwon Dobbs – Paper Pavillion

Kevin Minh Allen – My Proud Sacrifice

Lee Herrick – Gardening Secrets from the Dead and This Many Miles from Desire

Sun Yung Shin – Rough, and Savage and Skirt Full of Black

 

Adoptee-centric publications: