Lisa MM Butler is a Black (biracial), US domestic, transracial adoptee and former foster youth. She is an artist, writer, advocate, community organizer, and library lover. Lisa is known, online, as the Adoptee Clown and shares her experiences as an adoptee both on her Instagram @theadopteeclown and on Substack as The Adoptee Clown Diaries. She serves on the Board of VOICES, a BIPOC Adoptee Community 501(c)3 organization and is a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteer at CASA for Child...
Dec 10, 2024•59 min
Original Air Date: 11/22/22 Anita is a passionate, creative, transracial adoptee. Adopted with her identical twin sister, she grew up on a chicken farm with five siblings and considers her faith and family to be most important to her. She has a bachelor's degree in Social Work and is presently pursuing her Master's degree in Social work and a Certificate in Expressive Arts. When she isn't engaged in coursework or academic activities, you can almost always find her grabbing a bite with friends or...
Dec 03, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Jill Mann is a transracial, transnational Korean adoptee. She is an artist, musician, and writer, and a member of the BIPOC Adoptees team. She also works on the BIPOC Adoptees documentary project as editor, animator, and producer. She is also on the board of Asian Heritage Association, a local organization based in McMinnville, Oregon. Website: https://www.bipocadoptees.org/ IG: @pandamonium25 Music by Corey Quinn
Nov 26, 2024•43 min
Sandi Caesar is a returning guest. Sandi is an international adoptee from Panama, adopted by a Black US Air Force family stationed in Panama at the time. Most of her life has been in the midwest but she moved to Virginia in 2020. She is a social worker whose 30-year career has included time in mental health & child welfare. She has been in reunion with her first mother and maternal family since 2004. She's experienced some life-changing events since she was guest in 2022. Music by Corey Quin...
Nov 19, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Simon Benn is the host of https://www.thrivingadoptees.com/podcast Music by Corey Quinn
Nov 12, 2024•16 min
Original Air Date: 07/12/2022 Sandi C. is an international adoptee from Panama. Most of her life has been in the midwest but she returned to the DMV area about a year & a half ago. She is a social worker whose 30-year career has included time in mental health, adoption, and foster care. She has been in reunion with her birthmother and maternal family for 18 years. Music by Corey Quinn
Nov 12, 2024•55 min
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 in an unconscious trauma response for decades until she found the power of somatic trauma healing. Now she uses somatics, nervous system regulation, ...
Nov 05, 2024•55 min
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 in an unconscious trauma response for decades until she found the power of somatic trauma healing. Now she uses somatics, nervous system regulation, ...
Oct 29, 2024•51 min
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 explore her post-placement options, she guesses. In the interest of efficiency, her hobbies are her coping mechanisms and include pitch-black humor, elabor...
Oct 22, 2024•51 min
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 racism and micro-aggressions which caused her to deny a lot of her identity and curiosity until much later in life. Kim has two biracial children, a h...
Oct 15, 2024•1 hr 3 min
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://girland4families.com/ Music by Corey Quinn
Oct 08, 2024•40 min
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. She previously ran a web design and digital branding business and is dedicated to building community and making a positive impact through her professi...
Oct 01, 2024•51 min
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 Quinn
Sep 24, 2024•40 min
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 nonprofit executive with 15 years of experience in both the corporate and nonprofit sectors and holds an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business. Website...
Sep 17, 2024•47 min
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://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r4LJkJJ6aI https://www.amazon.com/dp/1480979724?ref=cm_sw_r_mwn_dp_VEQD3XYGHN0MX43XVFC8&ref_=cm_sw_r_mwn_dp_VEQD3XYGHN0MX43...
Sep 10, 2024•54 min
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 and American Food Fight, a children’s picture book about a cross-cultural family also published by the University of Minnesota Press. A Bush Artist a...
Sep 03, 2024•50 min
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 their activism and creative work. Links: https://linktr.ee/ryanartes https://upendmovement.org/dream/ Music by Corey Quinn...
Aug 27, 2024•1 hr 14 min
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
Aug 20, 2024•1 hr
Original air date: July 27, 2021 "Raise your hand and self validate yourself." -Marc Borne Music by Corey Quinn
Aug 13, 2024•1 hr 4 min
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 months. Because of closed adoptions, it took decades to connect scarce information to find her siblings. She and her siblings have Ojibwe or A-nish-i-na...
Aug 06, 2024•50 min
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 reunion when her best friend from childhood revealed a 37 year old family secret: Nancy was adopted. Nancy returned home from the reunion without telling he...
Jul 30, 2024•56 min
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. Kate believes it's possible to understand yourself better, take charge, and live with more purpose and joy. Website: https://katemurphytherapy.com/...
Jul 23, 2024•10 min
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 journey exploring trauma, my roots and who he is. Simon spent 17 years doing this and continues to be fascinated by healing, growing and thriving. He’...
Jul 23, 2024•31 min
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 Indiana Adoptee Network and testified moultiiple times throughout the years in support of OBC access for the sister organization, H.E.A.R. Hoosier For ...
Jul 16, 2024•1 hr 3 min
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. Her work has appeared in several online magazines and anthologies, including Midnight & Indigo and Chicken Soup for the Soul. Garland’s debut memo...
Jul 09, 2024•55 min
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 siblings. Lisa is the mother of two phenomenal young adults aged 22 and 25. She has been in education for 34 years. In her spare time, she runs marathons...
Jul 02, 2024•53 min
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 Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California. Dr. Rowley holds a license as a Mental Health Counselor (LMHC, #LH61080171)...
Jun 25, 2024•46 min
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 director of the non-profit, the WAVYS, that hosts a music awards show annually in New York City with generous support from the NYC Mayor's Office of ...
Jun 18, 2024•55 min
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 Compassionate Inquiry approach, a method she has personally integrated for over a decade to transform her own life, she integrates many teachings from a varie...
Jun 11, 2024•1 hr 5 min
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 who was adopted as an infant by a white family and raised on a farm in Minnesota. She has three siblings who are biological children of her adoptive ...
Jun 04, 2024•46 min
