Julie Brumley is a trauma-informed adoptee coach who has been coaching men and women for more than 15 years to overcome addictive behaviors and heal the primal trauma of abandonment. She is also the CEO of Coming Home to Self, a company dedicated to helping adoptees heal. After her own birth mother tried to abort her twice, she found herself frozen…

Molly/Mavka is an early 80's Catholic Charities, closed, same-race adoptee. She has been in on-again-off-again reunion with her birth mother for 20 years, and is leisurely navigating reunion inklings with her birth father. Her adopters' choice to estrange themselves from her has offered an often-troubling-but-still-freeing expanse in which to explo…

Kim Stevens was adopted in Korea along with her bio brother into the same family. They were stationed in South Korea and immigrated to the US after their adoption. Kim was raised in Central Texas in a predominantly white community with few racial mirrors and even less cultural socializations. Being in that environment, she was taught to ignore the …

Dana Ozak is a full-time preschool teacher, passionate adoptee advocate whenever she has time, part-time college student, part time water color artist, part time author, and whatever other free time she has is spent going on long walks with her sweet husband and hanging out with him and their college aged offspring. Website: https://girland4familie…

Liana Soifer (she/her) is a transracial, transnational adoptee from South Korea, raised in Oregon, and the Co-Founder and Executive Director of BIPOC Adoptees VOICES, a Portland-based nonprofit leading initiatives for BIPOC adoptee communities. With a BA in Human Services, Liana has experience as a Project Manager in software and web applications. …

Amanda Robinson is a Korean adoptee. She was adopted with her twin sister and raised in Washington. Though she's wanted to be many things, currently she is a retired dental hygienist who homeschools her two kids, and is an aspiring children's lit writer in her free time. She aims to encourage kids through her future children's books. Music by Corey…

Grace Yung Foster is the Founder and CEO of The Inclusion Initiative. They are elevating the future of work for Adoptees of Color and Foster Care Alumni. Grace is both an Adoptee and a Foster Alum. She’s committed to creating more equity, inclusion, and opportunity for our communities, especially within our workplaces and careers. She is a former n…

Kathleen Shea Kirstein is a Late Discovery Adoptee and NPE (Non-Expected Parent Event), as well a mother of two sons, retired Registered Nurse, and illustrator of three children's books with author D Ann Hollon. She has published two essays in Severance magazine: "Dear Mother" and "Blown off Course.” https://severancemag.com/dear-mother/ https://ww…

Shannon Gibney is a writer, educator, and activist. The author of several books, including The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be: A Speculative Memoir of Transracial Adoption, which received a Michael L. Printz Honor and a Minnesota Book Award; See No Color and Dream Country, both winners of Minnesota Book Awards; and Sam and the Incredible African…

Ryan Jafar Artes (he/she/they) is an activist, memoirist, and poet. Ryan’s work calls for a re-imagination of culture via cultural renaissance from their lived experience and perspective as a transracial transnational South Asian Indian American adoptee. Ryan is the host of The Adoptee Open Mic, and hosts virtual letter writing classes to support t…

Original air date: 02/01/2022 Pekitta Tynes is a published author of the book "Thank God I was Adopted 'Cause DNA is No Joke!" Based on her memoirs and journey to how she found her biological family through DNA testing. Her reunion can be seen on a YouTube video, "Pekitta's Journey". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFhUFNkqpPU Music by Corey Quinn…

Original air date: July 27, 2021 "Raise your hand and self validate yourself." -Marc Borne Music by Corey Quinnبقلم Jennifer Dyan Ghoston

Elizabeth (EM) Blake has a recently released graphic memoir called Connecting Threads: Five Siblings Lost and Found. She is one of five children who were removed from their first family over time and placed in foster care, and most were adopted when young. She didn't know until decades later that she had lived with her first mother for weeks or mon…

Nancy McCaughey is a returning guest. Nancy identifies herself by her most treasured life roles; wife, mother, daughter, sister, newly-retired midlife transition coach and late discovery adoptee (LDA). She is in the process of completing her memoir, Reunion. It is about her own midlife ‘identity quake’ that took place at her 20th high school reunio…

ADOPTION LOSS: WHEN GRIEF IS SUFFOCATED By Kate Murphy, LCSW Kate Murphy is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a psychotherapy practice in Atlanta, GA. She specializes in working with members of the adoption constellation with a focus on adoptees. She knows that processing the loss and grief caused by relinquishment is challenging to do alone. …

Simon Benn is a returning guest. Simon was adopted at 5 weeks old and told so young he doesn’t ever remember not knowing. He didn't experience any conscious adoption trauma until 40 when he found out his childhood teddy bear was a gift from his birth mother. This caused an eruption of anger, feeling rejected and unloved. That kickstarted a healing …

Marcie J. Keithley is a returning guest. Marcie is an author, speaker, master storyteller and CoFounder of the National Association of Adoptees and Parents (NAAP) She retired as Vice President of Retail Bank Management and Merrill Lynch after serving the financial industry for over 32 years. A first/birth mom in reunion since 2008, she co founded I…

Dr. Katherin Elizabeth (K E) Garland is an award-winning creative nonfiction writer, blogger, and author based in Florida. She uses personal essays and memoir to de-marginalize women’s experiences with an intent to highlight and humanize contemporary issues, such as reproductive rights, intergenerational trauma, adoption, and mental health issues. …

Lisa K Bouler is a returning guest. She was born and adopted in Chicago. From an early age her adoptive parents shared her adoption story and encouraged her to search for her biological family. With their support, she eventually found out she was not only a big sister to her parent’s biological child, but a big sister to her own four biological sib…

Dr. Stephen Rowley became a psychotherapist after a rich and varied career in K-12 and higher education. He earned his B.A. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a major in English and Psychology. He also earned a Ph.D. in Administration and Policy Analysis from the Graduate School of Education of Stanford University and an M.A. in Counseling…

Rebecca Autumn is a returning guest to the podcast. Rebecca Autumn Sansom is a documentary filmmaker, event planner, and non-profit director. Her films, including Reckoning with the Primal Wound (2023) and Trainsforming America (2012), have screened at film festivals and public and private events throughout the United States. She is the founder and…

Mee Ok Icaro (pronounced “Mee Oak Ee-car-oh”), is a unique and powerful voice in the world of visionary medicine and personal growth. As a Writer, Book Doula, Sacred Medicine Advisor and Integration Specialist, Life Purpose Coach and Guide, Mee Ok is dedicated to helping individuals heal and find their path in life. Skilled in Gabor Maté’s Compassi…

Shelise Keum Mee Gieseke (s/hers) is the head of operations at Adoption Mosaic. She has worked in the adoption community as an editor, educator, and administrator for over 10 years, including editing and curating the blog Land of Gazillion Adoptees and the online magazine Gazillion Voices. Shelise is also an intercountry Korean, interracial adoptee…

Becca Flatt is a Mixed Race, Black and white, closed, domestic infant, interracial adoptee. Becca’s biological family and adoptive family mirror each other; however, Becca, being mixed race, does not share the racial identity of either set of her parents. Becca Graduated from The University of Southern California with her Master’s in social work an…

Rebecca Wellington currently teaches in the School of Education at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. She holds a doctorate in education history from the University of Washington. Rebecca’s career in education started 26 years ago on the ocean, sailing around the world on a traditionally rigged tall ship. Through this two-year glo…

Louise Browne is a baby scoop-era adoptee from the United States living in California. She Co-Hosts a podcast, Adoption: The Making of Me, that helps to get adoptees' stories out in the world to help change the narrative around adoption. Hosting Adoption: the Making of Me has brought questions and past feelings to the surface about why she had alwa…

Jennifer Poole was adopted as an infant in a closed adoption. She holds a Masters Degree in Interfaith Pastoral Counseling, where she wrote her thesis on “Openness in Adoption as an Opportunity for Spiritual Growth”. It was during this time, in 2001, that she initiated her reunion with her birth mother and later with her birth father. Passionate ab…

Edward Di Gangi is a returning guest. Adopted at birth, Edward Di Gangi was born and raised in New York City. Although he knew for most of his life that he was adopted, it wasn’t until he approached his 70th birthday that he began to search for the identity of his birth mother. His journey and the many surprising discoveries he made as he searched …

Heather G. Marshall is an adoptee, author, speaker, teacher, and traveler. Her short fiction has been published in a variety of journals, including Black Middens: New Writing Scotland, and Quarried, an anthology of the best of three decades of Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel. Her first novel, The Thorn Tree, released in 2014 (MP Publishing). When the…

Michael Knox is a returning guest, and after four years of listening to podcasts and interacting with his biological family, he has a different view on adoption. Coming out of the fog, he thinks is a real thing. Nobody can really define it, but there are things that he discovered that might help explain it for some people. The fact that after 25 ye…

Valerie Naiman is a returning guest and the author of the newly released book Mystic Masquerade: An Adoptee's Search for Truth. Her memoir was compiled from decades of diaries and journals she wrote during her biological & spiritual search. Valerie is also a singer, story-song writer and is working on an album of her adoptee story songs. Besides th…

Eva Asprakis was raised in South London by her American mother and Cypriot stepfather, who subsequently adopted her. She now lives in Nicosia with her partner, and is the author of two contemporary fiction novels. https://www.eva-asprakis.com https://www.instagram.com/eva.asprakis Music by Corey Quinn…

Leslie Pate Mackinnon, L.C.S.W. resides in North Carolina and presents nationally and internationally on issues that impact families conceived through adoption and third party reproduction. She trains therapists, agencies, and universities across the U.S. on the complex issues that accompany adoption and ART. She offers individual consultation and …

Monica Hall was born in Canada, adopted by American parents, and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. Growing up in a house filled with dysfunction, Monica rebelled against her strict Catholic parents in a downward spiral of delinquency. After being raped and finding out she was pregnant, her parents pushed her to up give her daughter–her only known blood …

Marilyn Mendenhall Waugh is the Director of Adoption Concerns Triangle of Topeka, a search and support group serving those in Northeastern Kansas, and past president of the American Adoption Congress. She is a frequent conference presenter on ethical search and reunion techniques. For the past 28 years, Marilyn has volunteered in the Post Adoption …

Melissa Brunetti is a domestic adoptee from the baby scoop era and even though she had what she calls a 'good adoption with great adoptive parents' that doesn't mean she doesn't still have scars from her relinquishment. She says that she sees her healing journey as a gift that has shown her hidden treasures among the trauma. Melissa is the podcast …

Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard is a birth mother who has spent several years working in the adoption field—both as a paralegal on the West Coast and in adoption agencies in the Midwest and East Coast. Kelsey is the fourth generation in her family to relinquish a child for adoption and her whole life has been uniquely impacted by adoption as a result. …

Tara Griffith is an adoptee, adopted at the age of 13, through an open kinship adoption. She is a birth mother of almost 18 years in an open adoption. Tara is a licensed clinical social worker in the state of Florida who has spent the last 14 years working in the field of adoptions. She opened a DCF licensed adoption home study agency in 2021 in ho…

Sara Easterly is an award-winning author and essayist. Her latest book, Adoption Unfiltered (Rowman & Littlefield, Dec 2023), is a collaboration with birth parent Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard and adoptive parent Lori Holden. Her spiritual memoir, Searching for Mom, won a 2020 Illumination Book Award gold medal, among many others. Sara’s adoption-foc…

Returning guest David Bynum was born and adopted at birth in Columbus, Oh. He began his search in 2018 and is currently in reunion with both sides of his biological family. He is a married father of three and grandfather of six. He is a U.S. Army Veteran and Retired Correctional Officer. David Recently retired from coaching High School Football at …

Original Air Date: May 11, 2021 Barbara Robertson is affiliated with NAAP (National Association of Adoptees and Parents) and co-facilitates a virtual support group Adoption Network Cleveland once a month. She is a contributor to "Black Anthology: Adult Adoptees Claim Their Space" (The An-Ya Project) https://www.amazon.com/s?k=adult+adoptees+claim+t…

Angie Giles is an international adoptee, orphan, sister, daughter, wife, mother, friend and craft entrepreneur. In the beginning, the only thing she knew was her biological mother's name, Isabel Gamez. Angie was given up at 6 days old to the Rosa Virginia Peletier orphanage on June 22, 1978. She was given the name Rutilia De Los Angeles Gamez at bi…

Iris P. Bryant is a recent widow and mom of two young adults. She is passionate about helping women find purpose on the other side (or smack dab in the middle) of pain. She has served an online community at irispbryant.com for several years. She is also an adult adoptee and she created The Adoptees in Arms community to help adult adoptees find hope…

Dr. Sara Docan-Morgan is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse. She earned her PhD from the University of Washington. Her research has been published in Adoption Quarterly, the Journal of Family Communication, the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Communication Quarterly, Family Relations, and the …

Original Air Date: October 12, 2021 Ridghaus relinquished a son at 19 and then later, at the age of 35, learned that he had been relinquished and adopted. Ridghaus is the co-creator of the 6WAM (Six Word Adoption Memoir). He has spent the last 20 years teaching as a professor in English, Communication, Media, and Law from his graduate degrees in En…

Original Air Date: November 23, 2021 Jean A. S. Strauss is an adoptee who located her birth family in 1988, a life-changing experience which she continues to learn from today, thirty-three years later. She is the author of five books (three about adoption search and reunion) and over 80 films, 55 of which are focused on the need for adoptee access …

This episode is lovingly dedicated to Stephen McGue (Julie Ryan McGue's husband) who made his earthly transition on 02/12/22. Julie Ryan McGue is an American writer, a domestic adoptee, and an identical twin. She explores the topics of finding out who you are, where you belong and making sense of it. She is the author of two books: Twice a Daughter…

Sariah Baker is a Chinese American adopted by a White American Mormon family. She recently left the Mormon faith to find herself and her birth family. She believes in having your "backpack of truths". Music by Corey Quinnبقلم Jennifer Dyan Ghoston

Kate Murphy, LCSW is a returning guest. We discuss when making a difficult decision can ultimately serve to self-care and honor oneself. Kate is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a psychotherapy practice in Atlanta, GA. She specializes in working with members of the adoption constellation with a focus on adoptees. She knows that processing the…

Michelle Madrid is the author of Let Us Be Greater: A Gentle, Guided Path to Healing for Adoptees and host of the Electricity of You Podcast. She is an international adoptee, former foster child in the UK, and an adoptee empowerment life coach who has been recognized as an Angels in Adoption® Honoree by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Insti…